


A Fiery Switch

by SupremeShadows



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, Lion Switch AU, M/M, Way to many to name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-06-27 23:15:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15695343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SupremeShadows/pseuds/SupremeShadows
Summary: Let's give the s7 ending a different end? What if they were too slow to remove the Altean Monster from Earth? Lance and Red are the most loyal and will show it to everyone, but what happens to them? What happens when something so powerful forces them to switch forms? How will Keith, Lance's family and the entire Garrison crew try to help them out?





	1. A Different Outcome

**Author's Note:**

> Due note, I might edit this soon, but how far is Lance and Red willing to go to protect the ones they love?

Lance POV

The thing we been fighting against was tough. Our energy has been sucked away from us like in the Komar. We were offline for a few minutes only to see the ATLAS getting its energy taken away like it did to us. “We have to do something.” I panted out. “It’s going to destroy the ATLAS.” I said louder. Our people are in there, Shiro’s in there…My sister.

The thing stopped taking energy and stood up ready to charge for another shot. It raised over ATLAS when I heard Keith’s voice. “That's it.” He said lowly. “It’s the only place that isn’t armoured.” The center. “We have to strike right there before it fires.” 

“That’s a split second window.” Allura’s unsure voice wavered in. “How do we do that.”

I saw a blinking red light and looked to the right. “My bayard.” I said out loud.

“Team.” Keith said to us. “We got one chance. Give it everything you got!.” His voice never faltered. “Lance!” I stuck my bayard into the port and I could feel Keith do the same. We connected and together, our power allowed Voltron to gain its sword and its amped up wings. With the boost we went towards the machine and as Keith guessed, we were too quick for it. The thing attacked us twice and missed, just for us to attack it straight in the center. Electricity was shooting out of it before it blew up in our faces, which made our lions separate due to it’s power.

“Anyone?” Hunk. “Hello.”

A small cough came a few seconds after. “I’m here.” Pidge.

“I’m here too.” Keith’s voice was strained.

“Blue Lion checking in.” Allura.

I gave a soft sigh in relief as everyone’s lions came back online. “Did we do it? Did we beat that thing?”

A few seconds and no one answered. I was about to call again when Keith’s voice came in. “I think so.” I smiled as I heard his voice. “ATLAS.” I raised Red up as he raised Black. “ATLAS what’s your status. ATLAS are you receiving me.” He gave a grunt. “They’re offline.”

I was going to call for Veronica when my lion’s blinker went off and I looked up with wide eyes. “What is that?”

We flew towards it as Pidge spoke. “Surge indicators…coming from that thing.”

“I thought it was down?” I questioned as I got closer. 

“It is.” Hunk answered. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“It’s powering up.” He said suddenly. “It must have some self-destruct mechanism.”

Pidge’s face showed to us all. “According to my readings, the blast radius ALONE will envelope half of the Earth.

“Then we need to get it outta here.” Keith said in a determined tone. I gave a growl and went one of its legs as the other lions surrounded the Black Lion, who took the torso. We heaved that thing into the air and into space, but it was too slow. “Come on. Come on.” I heard Keith’s slightly wavering voice. 

“Keith!” We can’t do this!” Pidge said as we tried heaving it. Even with all of us, we won’t be able to get it out of the atmosphere in time!”

“We have to keep trying!” Hunk yelled out as Yellow’s thrusters went faster. “We can’t give up.”

It really was too much. I could feel the lions’ power lowering. “Lan….Lance!” Veronica.

“Veronica?” I heard her voice. “Veronica!”

“Lance you guys only have minute before that thing explodes!”

“No.” My eyes widened as we kept thrusting the thing up. 

“If that thing exploded from here, it’ll be able to hit everything in the Garrison and anything within a 600 mile radius.” Veronica explained. 

Everything was silent. I could hear just the thrusters of the Lions going. Veronica showed the count down to us and we have only 45 seconds.

“Keith. What are we going to do.” Allura whipsered.

“I-I don’t know.” His voice was broken. I could hear sniffles from Pidge. 

I could see everyone's faces from the comms and I closed my eyes before I received a thought from Red. He flashed a few images before our port opened once more. I smiled, before I noticed the time. 30 seconds. “Keith.” He looked at me. “When I give you the warning. Get out.”

“What?” I heard consecutive gasps from everyone.

I smiled. “Red has an idea, but it’s something only we can do. We have the speed.”

“Lance no!” Veronica yelled out. “Don’t—“

“Trust me!” I yelled as I continued to stare at Keith who looked ready to cry. “Please.”

He made a face before he nodded. “Okay.”

I slowed down before setting my lion next to Black and pushed. Red gave me the signal and I yelled. “NOW!” The four let go and stopped as I connected my bayard to the port and turned the opposite side of what I usually do. My lion turned its front paws and tail into claws, connecting to the torso of the thing. The legs combined into one giant thruster and we let out a sonic boom which shot us faster into the sky.

I let my voice be heard in the ATLAS and the Garrison base where everyone was standing looking up. “How far are we.”

“Twenty more miles will be safe.” Veronica’s voice wavered. “Lance.”

“I love you Ronnie, our family and my friends.” I said loudly. 

“Lance please.” Keith’s voice wavered. I could see my friends faces pop up, They were already crying. “Please don’t…”

The countdown was at 5

…4… “Hey Keith.”

…3…”Yeah.”

…2… I don’t care who hears this. “I love you Keith. Take care.”

1… I turned to comms off and closed my eyes as I heard everyone scream around me. I smiled as the blast hit and soon, I was out.


	2. Keith, Veronica, James POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Lance right? Well let's see what the others thought.

Keith’s POV

“I love you Keith. Take care.” My eyes widened as did the others. 

The count went to one and within that second he shut his comm off with a smile. “LANCE!” Everyone screamed. 

Tears ran down my face as I screamed out his name. We covered our faces from the blast and just barely noticed Red past us as it made its way down to earth. “No..No!” I cried as I turned Black around attempting to catch Red. The other lions tried to catch him as well, but it was within those moments, Lance and Red crashed down near the Garrison and slid near the entrance. I was the first to land and jumped out of Black’s mouth running towards Red. People rushed around the Red Lion, but the moment they saw me, everyone cleared a path to its mouth. “Lance! Lance! Please!” I could feel the tears come quicker as I heard no answer. “Red. Lance. Both of you.” I took out my Bayard ready to force myself in when I felt a nudge on my hand and before I could register, Kosmo teleported me in. I saw Lance, but his head was on the base of the controls. “No…no no no….” I made my way to him and gently pulled him back to see a giant gash on his head, blood was trickling down his nose and mouth as well. “L-Lance..” I sobbed.

“Keith?” I heard Veronica’s voice wavered out. “H-how’s my brother.”

I felt for a pulse only to feel nothing. “H-he’s not breathing.” I brought him closer to me and sobbed harder. I could hear the peoples’ scattered voices in the comm as I nuzzled my face into his neck. “Lance please. You can’t do this to me. Your family, our team, they need you, I need you.” I pulled him closer and closed my eyes taking in his sweet scent. “Lance please…Don’t leave me…I love you.” I whispered. Kosmo whined as he nudged Lance’s hand before licking it. “I love you so much.” After a few seconds of silence, the Red Lion’s controls lit up for a few seconds before shutting down, but within those few seconds I heard a gasp and looked to see Lance groan a bit before knocking back out. I laid my head on his chest and smiled as I was able to feel his heartbeat once more. “Lance!” I laughed softly before yelling out, “Guys! He’s breathing! Get the medics here! Now!”

The Garrison Medic’s ran in since the Lion opened its mouth during its few seconds of being on. One of them told me to move and I complied. “Keith?” It was Shiro. 

“He’s alive Shiro, but just holding on. The Medics just came in to take him.”

“Then follow them.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” I ran out the mouth and followed the Medics along with Kosmo at my heels. The others were standing outside the lion and followed right behind, along the way, Lance’s family joined us towards the Medical Wing.

I only made it to a certain point before they stopped us all. “Let me see my son.” HIs mom cried. “I want to see my son.”

The Medic shook his head. “He’s going into the operation room. You aren’t allowed past this point. Wait in the waiting room.” He shut the door and soon the operation light turned on.

I fell to my knees and began sobbing once more, soon my little space family all crowded around me trying to comfort one another. A bit after I was able to calm down, I turned my attention to Lance’s family who all huddled a few feet from us. I walked from the group and went to his mom before I knelt down and enveloped her into a hug. “I’m sorry.” I could feel those tears once again fall. “I couldn’t protect him.” My voice cracked as I said this.

“You tried mijo.” She backed away and leaned her forehead into mine. Her eyes shone the same color as Lance’s soothing me as his did. “He did what was needed to protect us and I will never fault you for that. Just knowing how much you love him shows me that you would never hurt my son on purpose.” She kissed my forehead, which I stiffened before I closed my eyes and leaned my head into her shoulder. Her husband laid a hand on my shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze before the rest of Lance’s family surrounded us and we stayed together in a small pile joined by my space family not long after.

 

Veronica POV

“Is everyone okay?” I struggled a bit and looked at Shiro who was managing to stand after everything. We witnessed from our spot Voltron managing to gain larger wings and quickly attack the hostile. 

The attack went through and we felt the ATLAS shake as the explosion went through. We looked at the explosion and cheered as we saw it destroyed. But soon something happened, “Sir our indicators tells us that the thing will explode soon.” I said hastily to Shiro.

“How long?” 

“A minute and 30 seconds.” I cursed as we saw the lions lift up the hostile “Lance,come it. Lance? Lance!”

“Veronica? Veronica!”

The crew gave a sigh in relief as we managed to connect to Voltron. “Lance you guys only have minute before that thing explodes!” I heard a soft no coming from him. “If that thing exploded from here, it’ll be able to hit everything in the Garrison and anything within a 600 mile radius.” I sent the time to Lance before turning to Shiro. “Sir?”

“I don't know what to do.” Shiro said conflicted. “I don't--”

“Keith. When I give you the warning. Get out.” I gasped as I heard Lance, the entire team around us looked shocked.

“Red has an idea, but it’s something only we can do. We have the speed.”

I could feel my eyes water. “Lance no!” My voice wavered. “Don-”

“Trust me!” Everything got quiet from here before, “Please.”

I begun crying as Keith’s voice spoke softly. A few seconds we heard a loud “Now!” from my brother. Tears poured heavily down my cheeks as a sonic boom erupted. “How far are we?”

I checked the perimeter. “Twenty more miles will be safe.” I looked at Shiro who's expression looked broken. “Lance-”

“I love you Ronnie.” My old nickname. “Our family and my friends.”

“Lance please.” Keith's voice once again heard, the pain evident in his voice. “Please don't…”

We watched the countdown helplessly as it hit 5. “Hey Keith.” EVerything was quiet as a small ‘Yeah’ replied. “I love you Keith. Take care.” HIs comm went off and the blast sounded throughout the comms. 

“LANCE!” I yelled. His picture went dark in his life monitor on our screen.

I covered my face and I could feel my body shake. My sobbing came harder as we heard Keith’s voice yell out. “No. NO!” I looked out the ATLAS to see the Red lion coming down fast near the base with the Lion’s trying to catch him. None made it in time as the Lion crashed down making the ground shake. We heard Keith trying to get into the lion. “Keith?” My voice was shaking worse than before. “H-how’s my brother?

“H-he's not breathing.” I turned to Shiro who was sobbing with Coran rushing towards his side in tears for my brother. “Lance please. You can’t do this to me.” His voice was gentle, laced with so much sadness. “Your family, our team, they need you. I need you.” I looked at my monitor in shock as his sobbing became more evident. “Lance please...Don’t leave me. I love you.” I looked at Shiro who didn’t seemed shocked. “I love you so much.” A few second passed and Shiro was just about to say something when something happened. His life monitor lit back up with a slow heartbeat and we heard a soft sound. A small laugh came out before, “Lance! Guys get the Medics in here! Now!”

I smiled into my controls as Shiro talked to Keith before he announced, “Let’s get the ATLAS back to the Garrison.”

James POV

We just made it back to the base as the Lions fought the hostile. I stood next to Kinkade as we stood outside of the Garrison base surrounded by some of the people watching. The conversation between the Paladin’s scared many of the people down here. We stood helplessly when Lance spoke up. He sounded so sure of himself, something I rarely saw when he was a cadet here years ago. Everything happened so quick. The attack, Lance’s sacrifice. His last words. “I love you Keith.” Heh. Had a feeling. “Take care.” The explosion was huge. We covered our faces from the wind and dirt that was thrown at us. 

“Oh no.” Nadia had a shocked expression and we looked up to see the Red Lion coming down fast with the Lion’s in tow. “Oh Lance.” I remembered that they were friends back then.

The Red Lion crashed and slid about 1 mile from us. “Come on.” Kinkade said already running towards it. We stood in front of the lion surrounded by people when we saw Keith running towards it teary eyes. He pounded the door a few times looking at the mouth. “Lance. Lance please!” His voice was shaken as he leaned his forehead on its mouth “Red. Lance. Both of you.” His eyes seemed to switch color before he released that weapon of his and was about to stab it through the door when his wolf came in and Keith looked shocked before it teleported them in. Everyone was silent as we heard Keith’s voice echo in the base through the comms, “No...no no no…” I shared a look with Nadia who looked like she was going to cry. I held her in my arms joined by Ina then surrounded by Ryan. 

“Keith.” Veronica. “H-How’s my brother.”

Nadia’s tears ran silently down, mourning for her lost friend. I held back my tears, we weren’t close, but he was fun to have around when we did hang out. Ryan held his expression, but his eyes showed so much inner turmoil. Ina leaned her head on Ryan’s shoulder as Keith spoke, “H-he’s not breathing.” Those around us stood silently mourning the loss of our teammate. “Lance please.” Keith’s voice was shockingly soft compared to what I used to hear. “You can’t do this to me. Your family, our team, they need you. I need you.” The Garrison was quiet as the other Paladin’s slowly made their way to the mouth of the Lion. That Katie girl leaned onto Hunk along with that one alien chick each crying. “Lance please…Don’t leave me.” HIs voice was filled with different emotion, this isn't the same guy as before. “I love you.” You can hear a small dog-like whine after he said that. “I love you so much.” We gave a moment of silence for Lance when something weird happened. The Lion lit up a few seconds before it’s mouth opened itself and we heard a small gasp followed by a moan. We split up in shock as we heard Keith laugh. “Lance! Guys! Get the Medics in here! Now!” 

“Everyone back away!” I yelled as the other Garrison students’ formed a wall pushing the crowd away to form a straight line directly to the Medical Wing. “Let’s give them some room.” The Medics’ ran inside the lion and soon ran across, we spotted Lance’s face, the poor guy had blood running down his face, and a pale complection. Keith followed soon after, injured a bit from the battle as well as blood entirely on his chest plate, which i'm guessing was from Lance’s injuries. He kept pace with the Medics followed by his wolf whose ears were flat and keeping his attention to the gurney. Their team followed in step and soon we saw Lance’s family follow.

“Cadets.” The Garrison students looked at us as Kinkade took command for me, he’s my right hand after all. “We need to go around and make sure the people are fine.”

Many saluted in agreement, as I stood forward. “Lance should be in the Operation Room and with everything that just happened, no one will be leaving his side anytime soon. Four of you go take them blankets and pillows, eye them a bit for any bad injuries okay?” The closest four nodded before running towards the building while others scattered around.

I looked to see the ATLAS landing a bit away and I made my way with my team as they stepped out. Shiro and Veronica seemed out of breath and rushed to us, I stood in position as Shiro gave my shoulder a pat. “Good job Cadets. Do me a favor and rush to the Galran Base where Hunk’s parent’s are and bring them here. He’s going to need them.” I nodded as Veronica and Shiro ran off followed by Coran, Romelle, Iverson, Colleen and Sam. 

“We’ll go see them once we finish our tasks okay?” Kinkade said softly to us. “We need to be there for them now more than ever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? Tell me your thoughts below! See you next chapter!
> 
> Stay safe and smile!
> 
> ~Shadows


	3. Now We Wait

Keith’s POV

Four of the Garrison students brought tons of blankets and pillows as we sat down waiting for Lance’s operation to finish. They also checked everyone’s injuries as well, which weren’t bad, just a few cuts and bruises, although I kept snapping at them every time one got near me. Coran, Iverson, Shiro, Colleen, Romelle, Sam, and Veronica all came rushing in once the ATLAS landed, Hunk’s parent’s joined soon after which was a bittersweet moment for everyone.

“Keith?” I turned from my corner of the room to Veronica who had a concerned look on her face. “Please get that checked, you shouldn’t ignore that wound on your arm.”

I looked down at the blood before closing my eyes. “That’s not my blood. It’s from when I was holding Lance in my arms.”

“Ay chiquito.” Rachel, the middle of the five with long wavy hair came walking towards me. She laid a hand on my cheek and gently brushed my scar. “You and the others go take a shower. You all need to clean off the blood and sweat from the battles.” I was going to argue when her attitude changed slightly. “No arguing okay? If Lancito was awake, he would’ve kicked everyone out and have you all showered.”

My purple eyes locked eyes with her light grey ones for a few moments before I nodded. “Okay.” I whispered before standing up.

“Go straight to the cadet showers.” Iverson said from his spot next to Sam. The commander has been in and out of the waiting room in order to keep track of everything in the Garrison. Since Commander Sanda is no longer with us, he ended up taking higher position, sharing it with both Sam and Shiro, but he’s the one currently more stable out of the three. “I’ll have cadets bring you some clothes and towels okay? Leave your Paladin Armour out so we can get that cleaned too.” I nodded before motioning to the others.

“You too Vero.” Luis, Lance’s eldest brother said sternly. She was going to argue when he lifted a hand in a ‘don’t argue’ motion. “You are a mess hermanita. Lancito would never let it go if he saw you like that.” She sighed before motioning to Allura and Pidge to follow her to the female cadet showers.

Once we arrived, I turned on the showers and let the warm water flow down my body watching the blood wash away. I thought of everything that happened recently since we returned to Earth and Lance’s temporarily dead body that is permanently etched deep into my mind. I sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time before slowly finishing my shower, then exiting out noticing the others already left the showers. Once I entered the waiting room, the amount of people doubled, James and his crew came in sitting down silently next to the Alteans, he looked at me and nodded in acknowledgement, Matt and someone else I met a few times in battle sat with his family as they comforted Pidge who was silently crying once more. Shay and her brother sat with Hunk’s family as they tried to soothe the Yellow Paladin. Olia was with Lance’s family as her two kids occupied Lance’s niece and nephew in an attempt to cheer them up. Honestly, I didn’t even know Olia knew Lance, but it seems that she cares deeply about him if she’s here comforting his family. “Keith?” I turned to see my mom with Kolivan and Axca in a different outfit similar to Kolivan’s senior suit. Tears came once more as I shot passed everyone and into her open arms. She lowered us down and held me tightly, I could feel Kolivan and Axca lay a hand on my shoulders as I cried. “Everything will be fine Keith.” Her voice wavered a bit. “He’s going to be fine.”

“I love him mama.” The room became silent as I said that out loud. “I lost you once, Shiro twice, Dad and Regis are gone, I can’t lose him too. He’s my other half. I need him.”

I heard a small chuckle from Kolivan. “It seems your Galran half is more dominant than you once thought.” I looked at him blurry eyed as he knelt down and gently laid a hand on my head. “Galrans only have a chosen mate, the one they want to spend their lives with.”

Shiro appeared and sat down next to me, he was silent for a bit before turning to me. “You know, I always had a feeling you had something for Lance before I left for the Kerberos mission. He always seemed to get your attention when he was in the room, heck he was even Adam’s favorite cadet, and getting his attention is hard, I know. At first I thought I was wrong, but then watching you two grow to the Paladins you became, made me realize many things, especially when he fell into that coma after battling Sendak the first time, that was the moment I realized your love for him.”

“And your pinning for the Blue one did not go unnoticed.” Kolivan said with a hint of amusement. “Most of the Blades sensed your affections for him. I saw it from out first meeting with Lance, 

“Excuse me. Can we go back one topic.” We turned to Lance’s mother, who looked like she was one step from a heart attack. “You said coma? What do you mean by that?”

Coran stood up from his spot and smiled walking to the center of the room. “Ah yes Madam. Lance fell into a small coma the first week we encountered each other.” Those who didn’t know looked shocked. “We didn’t start of peachy the boy and I, but during a party, he walked out of the room and I could see the poor boy hurting.” Coran twisted his mustache in a soft motion. “He talked about you all and how he wanted to come home, he even listened to me talk about Altea, which not many let me do. It was at that moment I realized that this boy was more than he appears and while on our way back to the party, I didn’t notice that a bomb made its way past us. I had no armour so that explosion could have killed me upon impact, but Lance shielded me with his own body and while I was still a bit injured, it wasn’t as bad as his.” His eyes softened and looked at Lance’s family. “Your boy is caring and willing to listen, protective and extremely perceptive.”

The room was silent, while most didn’t even know the story, the rest of us didn’t even know that half of the story. “He did the same to us to mama. Remember?” We turned to see the eldest of Olia’s kids, Deon, speaking to his mom. “Orion and I were in the middle of a Rebel fight.”

She nodded before turning to Lance's mother. “One of our Rebel bases was attacked, the same base my children came to visit that week. The Paladins were in the system so they managed to help us fight, but midst battle the Galran separated me from my children.” Olia said twitching her left ear.

“In the battle, mister Lance was above a cliff getting the Sentries right? Well one of them charged towards us and almost got us when he jumped out of his sniping spot and attacked him with a cool sword!” Orion said excitedly. “He was cool! One strike and it was down! Mister Lance then switched to his gun and blew up about 7 drones with no miss!.” HIs tail wagged fast spoke about our Sharpshooter. “And after the battle ended, he called mommy and asked if he can fly us a bit in Red because it was scary for us and we flew around the planet we were in!”

“Mister Lance is pretty cool.” Deon said with ears pinned back. “He’s also super sweet and fun to be around. He even said he would show me how to weild a gun one day when mama says it’s okay.” His own tail wagged. “He took us into the Castle of Lions that night cause mama didn’t want us out in the base yet, and he showed us his training regime for his shooting. I asked him to shoot without looking and he shot three covering his face with the blackout feature in his helmet! Then we stayed with him in what he called a sleepover and he sung to us, showed us human games and we showed him ours, he also made us milkshakes. Mister is super awesome.”

“That’s so Lance.” Marco, the second eldest said as he held his nephew with a fond smile. “He may be the youngest, but he sure as hell is one of the most protective in our family. Super protective of those around him and tries his best to make everyone smile. That’s his biggest fault though, trying to make everyone happy I mean. That if anybody puts him down, he becomes self-conscious and is afraid of rejection as well as feeling like he’s not good enough.” 

“I know.” I whispered gaining Marco’s attention. “He wanted to step down as paladin once.”

“When did this happen?” Allura said shocked. “He is needed to--”

“To form Voltron.” My tone was curt, “That’s what you always say.” I leaned out of my mom’s arms and looked at Allura. “When we found Shiro’s clone, Lance came to me. He came to me in my room, but not as his usual self. He had a serious expression and told me he was planning on stepping down. Said how Shiro would get Black again and I would want Red, but wouldn’t want to take Blue away because you progressed so much. He said there was 6 paladins, 5 lions and without hesitation, he was planning on stepping down, that’s why I left.”

I felt my mom lean her head on my shoulder. “That’s what I did to you. I left you.”

“I thought you didn’t love me.”

“But I left to protect you...And you left to protect Lance.” 

I clenched my fists together and glared at the floor. “He doesn’t know that. When we were floating in space I started an argument between us all. Lance was angry, we all were, but his words hurt me the most. He said that I ran away and should’ve stayed away. He had every right to be angry with me, I only hurt him even when he did his best to make me happy.”

I felt a gentle hand on my cheek and looked up to see Lance’s mother kneeling beside us. “Sometimes protecting the ones you love means making hard decisions, and sometimes those decisions that are made by one side will scar the most. Do you truly love him?” She asked me.  
I stared at her before my eyes softened. “I do.”

“Then when he wakes, tell him why you left, tell him how you truly feel.” She let me go sharing a look with my mother before returning her gaze at me. “I approve of you Keith. Take care of my son.”

~~~

The operation lasted a few more hours, all of us quietly talking amongst each other when suddenly a siren went off. Shiro was the first to stand as the floor started shaking. “What’s going on?” He looked outside and his shocked expression made us all jump up and look outside the window. All the lions surrounded the Red Lion as it was thrashing wildly, spazzaming and its roars sounded like it was in pain, eyes flickering from it’s normal yellow to an ocean-like blue.

“Get an Olkari in here now!” The Garrison surgeon yelled. Kosmo jumped from his spot before teleporting and returned with someone slightly confused before assessing the situation then running inside the room only for us to see Lance thrashing sporadically against the bed. 

“Commander Shirogane. The Red Lion is thrashing around. What should we do?” The comm went off.

“We can see that from here Delilah. Thank you. Leave him be, if you try anything, the other Lions will protect him.” His voice was strained and scared, which didn't help the situation. “First the Red Lion, now Lance?”

A few seconds passed before we heard Lance’s painful screams. The four kids covered their ears in an attempt to block out the screams, Kosmo was pacing back in forth whining and his ears twitching. We felt helpless as we managed to see from the slightly opened door Lance’s body that was trying to be held down by the nurses. His mom begun crying as did most of the team, it didn’t help that the Red Lion was also thrashing scaring those outside. My breathing increased and soon at the same time at the Black Lion roared, I screamed out, “LANCE!” A few seconds after our scream, the Red Lion stilled before crashing down, while Lance’s body froze before relaxing. The surgeons looked at each other before nodding and returning to their work.

Another 4 fours passed when the Garrison surgeon came out with a tired expression. “He’ll be okay now.” We watched as they wheeled Lance’s slightly pale skin out of the operation room. “We’re going to move him into one of the larger rooms so you all can see him once he wakes. Give us an hour to get him properly cleaned up before you can come in, and he should be wake within two hours minimum. We followed the Medics to the hallway where all the rooms for patience were and we waited outside as they settled him in.

Once we were allowed in, everyone crowded around Lance’s bed. There was a crystal over his head that the Olkari said was a natural pain reliever from their home planet, he had his head wrapped in bandages as well as his chest, which made me wonder what other injuries he had. His mom and dad reached out and gently grabbed his hands. “Mi amor.” His mother said softly, “We miss you bebe.” 

“Mijito, come back to us.” His father added before they kissed his forehead, then allowed their other family near him. His brothers and sisters leaned in and said something in spanish, his sister-in-law came with her two kids as they kissed his cheek gently crying for him to wake.

I allowed everyone else to say something before I walked up to his side and grabbed his hand. I noticed how cold he was which worried me at first, but soon it morphed into a smile as I leaned down and touched foreheads. I closed my eyes with a smile before opening them. “We miss you Sharpshooter.” My voice was fond as I looked at his now normal colored face. “I love you.”

Everyone was talking amongst themselves as we waited for Lance to wake, none of us was really paying much attention to anything when suddenly Kosmo’s ears perked and he jumped up with a bark. He jumped a bit before running to Lance’s bed and whined excitedly. We looked at each other before hearing a small groan from the bed that made us all rush to his side, I was on his right side with Mom and Shiro beside me. He moved his head a few more times before he sat up in the bed. His eyes shot opened, but those weren’t his eyes.

“Lance?”


	4. Awaken, Revelation, and Confidence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to switch POVs a few times. Get ready for some feels!

Keith’s POV

“Lance?” His eyes gleamed yellow, not like my mom’s or Kolivan’s, but they shone sorta like the Lion’s yellow eyes when they light up. For a moment, his expression was confused before his eyes widened, he looked down at his hands before touching his face. I exchanged a look with Shiro before trying to grab Lance’s moving hand that was still a bit cold for humans, “Lance. It’s us. Your–” He turned towards me and snatched his hand away before growling. 

Lance’s mom tried getting his attention before he let out a more animalistic growl, his lips curled into a snarl before he attempted to bite his mom’s hand that was near his shoulder. She recoiled her hand in shock as Lance’s dad grabbed her and protectively pushing her behind. “Mijo.”

He stopped growling for a bit looking around with narrowed eyes, the color never faded, but became harsher than before. His eyes then locked onto mine. That stare I remember it from somewhere. “That’s not our Lance.” I said in shock. “I know that stare. It’s Red.”

“Then where is Lance? Where is my little brother.” Veronica said in anger. Her gaze turned to Allura who had her eyes closed in frustration. “Can’t you do anything with your magic?”

She stayed silent for a bit before releasing a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry.” She looked at Veronica with sad eyes. “I don’t know anything that has to deal with stuff like this.” 

Red slowly rose to his feet on my side, he stood still for a bit in a slightly slouched position. He slowly stepped forward a bit awkwardly before turning to Allura, after a few seconds, he made a face before turning his attention to the door and ran out. We stood in shock of what just happened when suddenly, “Sir. You can’t—“ A yell came after making us all run out the door only to see Red guiding Lance’s body through the halls and a nurse on the floor holding her throat coughing. Matt was the first one to her and sat her up calming her down. “That...wasn’t human.” She said shocked. 

While she was talking to Matt, I was still watching Red as he turned a corner which made me realize where he was going. “Fuck. He’s going to the Red Lion.” I said as I turned to Pidge. “Get word out to stay clear of him! We don’t know what he’s going to do!” I turned then ran the direction of where Red was heading with Kosmo and my mom running at my side, soon followed by everyone else.

“Attention Garrison attendance. If you see Lance running, stay out of his way. This is not our Lance, but the Red Lion possessing his body. We don’t know what he’s capable at the moment so steer clear of him and let him get to the Lions.” Pidge announced from the comm watch her father created for each of us.

We made our way through an open area on the third floor only to see Red already on the bottom making his way out the door. People that were gathered allowed him through in fear of what he would do, and I jumped from the third floor, rolling through the opening like they taught us in the Blades before continuing on my run followed by Kosmo who teleported with mom. There was a large crowd of people around the Lions outside as Red slowed down in front of the limp Lion form. Red stood in front of the lion, not making a single sound other than a soft whine, I stopped a few feet behind him as he tried to get closer. He stilled before growling and turned around facing everyone in a slight ‘ready-to-attack’ motion, I then realized there was guns pointed at him which made me panic and stand in front of them with my arms spread open. “Don’t attack!” I yelled as my mom and Kosmo positioned themselves as well. “Put your guns down.”

“But–”

“No buts officer.” Sam said as the others formed a tight line in front of Red, I could hear a confused sound coming from him as Pidge’s father continued talking. “From the small amount of information we managed to gather, it seems that the Red Lion’s spirit is in Lance’s body, which could mean one thing.” The guns were lowered as they nodded in affirmation.

Those around spoke in hushed voices looking at Red and the Lion, we all turned around to see Red facing the lion before stepping a few feet back right beside me. He let out a few coughs before he let out an inhumane roar, everyone covered their ears as he did this. I was going to say something before we felt the ground shift a bit, we looked up to the the Red Lion moving a bit before it shifted awake with its eyes shining the same blue that Lance’s eyes normally had. “Ugh.” 

That one sound made the theories that Sam thought of a few seconds ago confirm our suspicion. “Lance?”

~~~~

Lance’s POV

I heard a roar and I shifted a bit before opening my eyes. “Ugh.”

I yawned a bit before hearing. “Lance?” I paused mid yawn wondering why it sounded so tiny. I looked around and noticed people were around me, but that’s not what shocked me.

Everyone was mini sized. “Keith? Mom? Dad? Guys? Why are you all...so small?” I looked around and noticed Black beside me, I gave him a look over before I stood up “Why are you smaller than before?” I was freaking out before I started hyperventilating. “Holy….Fuck…What…” I scanned the area to see my face glaring at me with yellow eyes, we stared at each other before I took a breathe and screamed. I could feel the earth shake as I backed away looking around hitting the Lions on accident. “Who the fuck…What–? I slammed my nose onto Blue and I rubbed it only to see a red and silver metal paw. I screamed once more jumping onto my back legs before tripping on Yellow’s lower body and landed on my back. “Holy fucking shit!” I stood back up looking around quickly.

“Uncle/Mister Lance!” I stilled at the soft voices and looked down as the kids tried getting near me. “Uncle/Mister Lance!”

“Stay away!” I said lifting the nearest paw away. “Get away!” I guess my voice was loud cause they recoiled with fear in their faces. I could feel my metal ears flatten as I gasped. “No…no no…” I backed away in a slightly crouched position. “I–” I could feel a sob rise. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry kids.” I was about to turn and run when the other lions shifted on their own around me trapping me in. “I–” I closed my eyes and thought, “I can barely hear anyone, they are tiny, and I should be dead!”

I was shaking when I heard a small click sound in my...head? “Lance…” I could hear a soft call and my ears perked before I opened my eyes to look down at Keith who had a pained expression. “Please. Don’t say ever say that.”

“You…You heard that?”

“We all did.” I saw my mom coming closer, tears running down. “Mijo…

“Mami.” My voice was quivering, and I lowered my metal ears. “Mami, please. Please no llores.” I dug my claws into the earth as I lowered my head near them. “Mami….I…I’m sorry please don’t…”

“Why would you say something like that!” Hunk said at the same time Allura yelled, “How can you say something so selfish.”

I felt my metal body heat up in rage. “Selfish? Did you SERIOUSLY just call me selfish?” I thrusted my nose towards them in anger. “I saved your ass Allura. Yours, Coran’s, as well as a bunch of aliens I never even knew before this without any hesitation!” I snarled loudly. “You have no right to call me selfish. Ever! I died for you Allura! I fucking died for you! What did you do? You ignored me in favor of being with Lotor! You never even asked me how I felt!” I stood tall as I watched her shrink down. “Maybe if you were actually looking out for us like you always say, you wouldn't ignore those who actually gave two shits about you in favor of a guy who manipulated anyone around him!’ She backed away on shock as I looked at our team below me and roared out. “None of you even questioned how I felt ever! Hunk and Pidge made fun of my feelings when I was at my lowest and do you even know how it feels to be constantly called dumb? You don’t!” Those two looked down as their parents gave them disappointed glances. “Shiro’s clone constantly belittled me and mocked me every time he could, even ignoring all the times I was right which resulted in us almost dying more than once! I may not be the smartest or strongest, but you can be damn well sure I will fucking watch your backs!” Shiro’s face paled before he closed his eyes looking away.” Coran ignored me once Lotor showed and all I had was my cow! How would any of you know how I feel! None of you know anything!” I shook the earth making people flinch. 

I took a small...breathe I guess?...before a small voice came out, “I know that your acting like a damn asshole.” My eyes flickered down to see Keith and his wolf teleporting to Green’s nose to be eye leveled with me.

“Me?” I gave a raspy laugh. “You’re calling me an asshole?” I got closer to him, but he didn’t flicker. “What gives you the right? You left me when I needed you the most! You’re most of the reason for my pain.” I snarled. “I thought we had something once Shiro disappeared. I tried my best to make you happy once your brother disappear and do you know how fucking complicated you were! You are almost fucking impossible to handle!” He stepped back shocked. “You never listen to anyone Keith!”

“I listened to you!” He yelled back. “I listened to you when you wanted to step down!”

“You should’ve just ignored me like everyone else.” I reduced to a whine. “I don’t deserve—“

Kosmo teleported the two of them from Green’s nose to mine making me cross-eyed and Keith kicked me in between my eyes. “SHUT UP LANCE!” Everything was quiet. I could see tears running down his face as he dropped to his knees. “You wanna know why I left? I left because I love you back!” My metal body stilled as he sobbed. “You wanted to leave, I couldn’t let you. You are the most important thing to me. You were right about one too many paladins, but it wasn’t you. You’re the heart Lance, not Allura. You make everyone smile, keep everyone happy, comfort them at their lowest. You always made sure we each went to sleep and never overworked ourselves! Lance, you made sure Pidge rested when her family was still missing, kept Hunk from being scared by looking on the brightside, distracting Shiro from his PTSD, listened to Coran and Allura about Altea. And for me? You did everything right, you stayed by my side and helped me lead. You trained by me, included me in whatever you did so I wouldn’t be alone and you also defended me when I figured out I was half Galran!” He yelled out hoarsely. “I fucking hated myself! I hated myself so fucking much, but you made me feel like I was actually worth something!” 

“You are worth so much more than you think Keith.” I said softly, well soft enough. “And why I did all that wasn’t because we were Voltron, but because you are my family, albeit a bit forced in the beginning, but we created something worth loving. I’ll be the big brother Pidge needs, the positivity for Hunk, a distraction for Shiro and someone who will listen to the stories about Altea. I never treated it as a chore, you all needed someone. But you Keith, you’re awkward with people, though it’s not your fault. We both know I hate training, but I did it because it made you smile every time I joined you, I challenged you cause I always knew you would take the bait and join us, and Keith. I will always defend you.” I gave a small shake of my head making him look at me. “Unless your wrong, then I will fight you.” He laughed a bit making me purr, which was weird, but I kept focus on his smile that he now had on his face. “I knew you were Galran before you did actually.”

“How?” His face had a confused expression.

I gave a low hum as I thought about everything. “Our first mission together in the Balmera, you touched that touchpad which only activated through Galran genes, I overheard your battle with Zarkon and how he said you fight like a Galran. You also were asking Ulaz questions about his Blade.” His face was shocked as well as the others below. “When you found out, it confirmed my suspicion, but when Allura started acting out towards you, I knew I should be there for you. You may be part Galran Keith, but you are you and that’ll never change.” More tears poured out of his eyes as we looked at each other. “I love you Keith.” His eyes lit up as I said this, “I’m glad you’re safe, along with everyone else.”

“I’m just glad your alive.” He laid a hand between my eyes. “You scared me. You were dead and I–” He face twisted in pain before he shook his head then leaned into me. “I can’t lose you too.”

I closed my eyes, but I guess to them they went black or they dimmed? Who knows and let him calm down. I reopened them before laying my head down on the ground tilting my head for him to slid off with Kosmo. “I really wanna kiss you, but…” I swished my tail high above. “Really weird size difference.” I gently tapped his head with my muzzle. “I guess this is close enough to a kiss as I can get without killing anyone. He laughed before he kissed my metal muzzle. My tail stilled before it moved fast, but then it stopped. “Would...you still love me even if I stay in this form?”

“We fought a 10,000 year old zombie, fucking witches, I am half alien with an alien mom, fight alongside space ninjas or whatever you call us, we fly lions in space while forming a giant man and literally spent years in space while meeting hundreds of different looking creatures? Do you honestly think being in a different form will make me stop loving you?” He gave a soft smile before smirking. “I mean..” He points at Red who was standing a bit away from the group, “You being hot was a bonus, but...”

I gave a snort before nudging his shoulder with my claw. “I knew you stared.” I tapped my muzzle on his head again. “I love you.” I raised it before turning to my family and makeshift family. “I’m sorry everyone. I just...I’m just really confused...and stressed…”

“No Lance.” Allura said walking up to me. “We are sorry. You were right. As a princess, and part of this team, I should have paid more attention especially when you needed someone. I completely ignored you. I’m genuinely sorry.”

“We’re sorry too.” Pidge said from beside Hunk.

Hunk raised a fist bump. “Yeah man. We were just kidding around, but I guess we took it too far. And you’re not dumb, if you want, I can list you everything good about you.” I snickered before bumping his fist with my claw.

Pidge jumped on his shoulder and raised her own fist. “We may not be related by blood, but you are my brother. Even after I found Matt, you never stopped trying to protect me, and I’ll do my best to find a way to get you back.” I sniffled before bumping hers too.

“I have fault in this too.” Coran added. “I guess my hope for Lotor actually being on our side muddled our views, you never lowered your suspicion on him, which should have hinted us. You trust many so seeing you with that much hatred probably was an indicator.” He gently laid his hand on my claw. “And my boy, thank you. You listened to my stories, sometimes even coming to me asking for more whenever I was upset. It means the world to me.” I purred as he said this.

“I don’t remember much about my time in Black.” Shiro said a bit soft. “But the clone was wrong about you and to ignore you. Lance you were always there for me during my fits, making me play video games or listened to me in the middle of the night. I always tried hiding it, but you always managed to know and always knew how to handle it. For that I am forever grateful.” We stared at each other before I raised my claw and he fist bumped it with a smile.

“I wonder if mechanical lions can cry.” I said a bit shaky. “I really feel like crying, but in a good way.” I heard a snarl and looked at Red who was staring me down. “Can’t you see I’m trying to cry?” I said with a joking tone. Red gave a smirk before his eyes flashed and telepathically saying to me, ‘They can’t hear me, but you can. Tell them what happened.’ I tilted my head as he sighed before walking up to me and rested a hand on my nose. His eyes flashed showing me what happened to us during the last battle. I shook my head before turning to the people. “Okay. Here’s what Red said happened to us.” Everyone got quiet, Keith, Red and Kosmo sat down on my nose in comfort, my family leaning on my right paw and those I cared about from space all leaned on my left paw with a crowd of people in front. “At the moment the blast happened, Red tried to cocoon us in order to lower the damage, but it was a split second too late. The blast hit us and….” I paused before making a slow whine. “I really don’t want to say this but….Once that blast hit, it made a direct hit to Red’s head which with that impact made me hit my head on the controls, including an electric shock that with the head injury killed me. The crash on Earth was the one that powered down Red leaving him on his reserve power that he didn’t have much of, but according to him, once he heard how much my death would have affected those around us, he refused to let me die. He used a bit of his own power to send a jolt to my heart to keep me alive long enough for you all to get to me. During the operation, it was then that Red and I switched places. We don’t know how or why it happened and Red doesn’t know how to change us back. What we both do know is that I was willing to die to protect you all and Red was willing to risk it all as well to protect his siblings. It was our combined loyalty to you guys that managed to unlock that rocket, it was something even he didn’t know he had.”

Nobody spoke trying to process everything I just said until I felt little warm bodies on my muzzle. “You will come back Uncle Lance.” I looked at my little niece who looked at me with here big light blue eyes. “We won’t give up on you ever.”

“None of us will give up.” I looked at Deon who had his ears pinned back and tail wagging slightly. “You are our hero mister Lance.”

The other three nodded and I purred letting my eyes dim. “Nadia, Sylvio, Deon, Orion. You kids.” 

Once they got off Veronica came up to me. “Oh yeah.” She kicked my nose. “If you ever scare us like that again, I’ll tell everyone about what happened with you and that llama.”

I whined before rubbing my nose making a loud scraping sound. “In my defense, it was a herd and watch it. You may be the older sister, but I am physically bigger. I will corner you until all my dents are buffed out.”

“Wait. What happened with the llama?” Kinkade asked from his spot in front of me.

I stilled before gently shaking off the three from my nose and backing away slowly. “Eh...Nothing.” I faked a cough before turning around. “Well this is nice and all, but you all should get back to whatever you were doing.” I waved my tail at them motioning to the desert. “I should probably learn how to control this form.”

‘Be careful little one.’ My ears perked and I turned to Red who never changed his expression. ‘I can't promise you safety.’ I nodded before taking off. 

 

Keith POV

Even after Lance ran off, not many people left in favor of watching Lance trying to learn how to use his thrusters. We watched as he jumped a few times, earth shaking and some of the those around us laughed at his attempts. “Quiznaking piece of mierda.” He crouched down wiggling his hips before jumping up in the air, only to crash back down. “Ugh! Okay if I hear anyone complain about my flying…I’m flattening someone.” We saw him crash down before we heard a soft, “Fuck.” We could see from here as he shook his head, before making a whiney high pitch noise earning a few laughs from us. “Flying and piloting are the same my ass...OH!” One of the thrusters turned on, but he couldn’t control it which made him fall flat on his face. “I’d say kill me now, but it’s too soon to make that joke.” He mumbled before getting back up with his ears flat and staring at his paw. “How does this thing work honestly?” 

“Pidge.” I whispered. “Do you think he knows we can hear him?”

She shook her head as she turned off our side of the comm. “I didn’t even know he was mentally connected to the Garrison until he started talking to himself. He was connected to the Garrison even before I turned our comm on. Maybe when we were battling and we had our lions connected to the Garrison, he stayed connected?” She sounded confused. “I honestly don’t know…”

“Isn’t that like...invasion of privacy?” Griffin said from beside Kinkade.

She made a face before returning to the tablet in her hand that one of the cadets brought her when Lance left. “He said something about him not saying it outloud when he was freaking out, which means that somehow when he thinks something, we all will be able to hear it.”

“We should probably get on that then Katie.” Her father said with a serious expression. “We will need to find a way to make it so his voice can be heard, but not his thoughts. Some things aren’t meant to be heard you know.”

She was going to say something when. “Are you fucking kidding me!” We flinched to see Lance on his back with his paws up. “I fucking had it!” He seemed annoyed before we heard a small growl. “Okay so I have to do this by instinct.” He rolled over onto his left side. “I hate this.” His face turned to us before his eyes dimmed a bit. “This is embarrassing, a pilot who can’t fly.” He curled into himself making us all look at him in worry. “I don’t know what to do.”I heard a small whine coming from Red as he watched Lance, before he closed his eyes and Lance quickly looked at us. “Red?” His eyes dimmed before he laid his head down. “I know you feel just as bad...but it’s just hard not to get frustrated...” He sighed before lifting his head. “I would die a hundred times over for them.” His voice sounded so sure. “But what does that have to do with–” He stood up facing his body from where he was at. “I have no confidence Red I thought we talked about this before…” He sat down with his head down. “Red...Red...I fail at pretty much everything other than sniping and silk dancing...And I know that they apologized, but they were right...I’m just the goofball. The dumb one...” Red gave a soft growl from where he was now standing, Lance’s head slowly looked up as his growl turned into a purr. After what seemed like a few minutes, his head shot up quickly, “You honestly think that about me?” The Blue lion then let out a roar followed by Black. “You...really do think that about me?”

“What’s going on?” Veronica asked Allura.

“I don’t know.” She said pondering. “We all know him and Red shared their minds so they can understand each other, but I think that goes deeper. It seems like he understands what the other lions are saying.” 

“Do you think he can actually understand them? Not like how we understand them but actually speak to them?” Hunk questioned.

Allura cocked her head to the side. “I would say it's impossible, but...,”

“They are sentient.” Shiro said with his arms crossed. “When I was in Black, I couldn't do anything cause it was Black who was still in control and I couldn’t understand him, but Lance IS the lion whatever happens we must be--”

A sonic boom happened and all of us covered ourselves in reflex. “Aw yeah!” We heard Lance’s cheers which made us all look up with smiles on our faces. “Hell yeah!!!” He was doing a nose dive before pulling up seconds before impacts and did a few loops before running across the desert. “I did it guys! I did it!”

A roar came from behind us followed by the others, Red joined in smiling for the first time since waking up.

Lance’s POV  
~during his failed attempts~

Are you fucking kidding me!” I huffed to myself. “I fucking had it!” I closed my eyes before remembering what Red told me during my first few attempts. “Okay so I have to do this by instinct.” I dug my claws into the ground before I plopped onto my left side. “I hate this.” My attention turned to the group of people still watching, “This is embarrassing, a pilot who can’t fly.” My attention focused of Keith before turning and curling into myself and laid my tail over my nose.

‘Hey little one. Don’t give up’ 

I perked my ears before turning back to the crowd. “Red?”

I could feel the same purr in my mind that he did when we were in our own bodies. ‘I know what your feeling little one. I am equally as frustrated as you are, but you mustn't give up yet. You only been at it for a minimum of 10 minutes, mastering this takes time depending on how fast you are at learning.’ 

I laid my head back onto the ground and closed my eyes. “I know you feel just as bad...but it’s just hard not to get frustrated...”

‘Was dying worth this? Was dying for your people and loved ones worth this?’

I gave a soft sigh before lifting my head back up. “I would die a hundred times over for them…But what does that have to do with–”

‘You had the confidence to die for your loved once. You need to have that confidence in yourself again cub. Confidence in your flying will help you get those thrusters on. It’s all about trusting yourself.’ His growls were soft. 

I growled softly before standing up. “I have no confidence Red I thought we talked about this before…” I sat down and lowered my head in defeat. “Red...I fail at pretty much everything other than sniping and silk dancing...And I know that they apologized, but they were right...I’m just the goofball. The dumb one....” 

‘Lance.’ Red gave a soft growl. I rose my head a bit in slight shock since he’s never called me by my name before. ‘Did you not hear what the your team said to you? You are more than what you just said. You’re speed matches my little red one, but unlike him, you managed to access everything within seconds like snipers should, and that dancing? I could feel the amount of strain you put on your body to do all that and I must say, it’s impressive. Your flexible, fast, you can hide in the shadows and protect those behind you. I noticed the Paladins don’t watch their backs because they know they can trust you to watch them all. You think I chose you out of pity? Never. I chose you because you were the only one Keith would listen to with no hesitation, you have leadership skills that others lack and the ability to bring everyone up. You are mine little one. I am happy to have you as mine.’

I gave a few seconds of shock before I looked up quickly. “You..honestly think that about me?” 

‘And mi Cielito, you have the heart, the will to protect, which is why you bonded with me so quickly.’ Blue said in her soft soothing voice that I come to love. ‘I love you still and I always will even if you are no longer mine, but you grown little one. I gave you up to Red cause I knew you were ready for a higher position, not because I didn’t love you.’ She purred.

‘You might not have been ready for full leadership little one, but you were ready to co-lead with Keith.’ Black rumbled out in a deep harsh roar. ‘I was glad Red took you in, Keith was not fully ready, and Allura being in Red would’ve thrown you all off. Keith needed a right hand who he would listen to, you did that, but you also managed to co-lead which has never happened before. Your skills, your personality is what makes you...you.’

“You...really do think that about me?” They all nodded and I looked down once more at my paw. “Huh. I always thought not many cared.”

Green purred in a light tone. ‘You are a goofball little one, but you are loved beyond words.’

Yellow rumbled out shyly. ‘You make us all want to be better, never forget that.’

‘Now go.’ They all said in unison. ‘Be great.’

I smiled in my mind before raising up and walked a bit before running a few miles. ‘I’ll show them all who I am. I’ll be…” I felt my thrusters starting as I gained my confidence. “Myself!” I flew a few feet above before the thrusters went full on and let out a sonic boom. I let out a yell, “Aw yeah!” I howled before doing some normal flying sequences. I laughed a bit, “Hell yeah!” I did a nose dive before pulling up sharply, then looped a bit. I laughed more before running on the desert with a smile in mind, “I did it guys! I did it!”

‘You did it!’ Green. ‘I knew you could!’ Yellow. ‘I’m so proud of you mi Cielito!’ Blue. ‘Never had doubt.’ Black. ‘I told you.’ Red.

“I DID IT!”

Keith’s POV  
~Present~

“I DID IT!” He laughed as he ran carefree across the desert. “I DID IT!”

We cheered for him when a click from the comms turned on once more. “Go Uncle/Mister Lance!” The kids screamed. “Go Uncle/Mister Lance!”

“Huh?” He turned before crashing into a broken building. “Hijo de puta!” 

“Leonardo! Watch your language!” His mom scolded.

His ears perked and he ran towards us getting here within a minute. “Y-you heard?”

“Hijo. We heard your entire talk.” His mother said gently.

He stiffened before his eyes shimmered a light blue color. “No. no.” He stood up fully. “You heard...everything?” She nodded which gained a small whine before shaking his metal pelt. “This means I won’t get private thoughts? I-no...no...” His ears flattened. “Fuck!”

“Language!” His father scolded.

“Quiznack!”

“Language!” Coran mock scolded earning a glare with not much heat in it.

“If you guys were able to hear everything...then you heard me during my flying. Didn’t you?” We all nodded and he dimmed his eyes. “Dammit. Another issue to deal with.”I rushed to his side and motioned him down, which he did with a careful drop. “Keeeiiittthh…”

“It’s okay Lance.” I rubbed his nose gently earning a purr. “Pidge, and the other techs will find a way to privatize your thoughts. Just don’t worry so much.”

Pidge ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his nose. “Don’t worry Lance. I won’t stop until I can find a way to privatize your thoughts and bring you back.”

His eyes light up once more. “I know you will Pidgey, but please put your health before me okay? I’m not small enough to check on you like in the castle, and as much as I wanna be human, I’ll be fine in this form for a while okay?” Pidge slid off as he rose his head and tapped her head like he did with mine. “I trust you will find a way, but take your time, relax…” He put a claw on her chest. “And take some time to your family, you have them all in one place now, so be with them.” His voice was soft..ish? It warmed my heart and I could tell his words impacted many around.

“Can't you think about yourself for once?” She said in a joking tone.

He shook his head. “Not when it comes to my loved ones.” He raised his head above us. “And with Earth being safe for now, I want you all to just relax, get yourselves back up on your feets...paws?...Oh! Tentacles! Whatever you all walk or waddle on...” Most gave a small laugh at that. “I’ll be fine.”

“Uncle Lance?” 

He lowered once more. “Yes mi amor?”

Nadia ran to his muzzle and kissed it. “Thank you. For saving us.”

The others joined in a mass hug around Lance as well as the other attendance in the Garrison. “We could never thank you enough.” Colleen whispered to him from next to Sam. “Not just for protecting us, but for keeping our children safe.”

He purred as everyone thanked him in their own way, “I’d protect you all no matter what. Lion, human, I’ll be your shield, I’ll defend you all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the first time there was a lion/human switch? Did I start and AU? maybe? I'll call it the Lion Switch AU!! I hope you all liked it. I need to go back through them and edit them a bit though. Tell me what you think everyone!
> 
> ~Shadows


	5. Let's go into the eyes of the Lion...What does he see?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was sorta hard I guess? I want Lance to go home for a bit so get ready, to understand a bit more read the notes below.
> 
> BTW I am going back to change the kids names as well as Luis and Marco's positions, Trying to be more accurate with them

Lance's POV

‘Try the Jawblade…..Now try the Tail Laser...Now the--’ Green kept changing.

I groaned before falling onto my left side. “Can we stop now please? We been doing this for the past three hours.”

‘No mi Cielito.’ I turned my head to Blue. ‘You must be ready, especially in a different form.’

I twisted on my back and stayed with my paws in the air. “Oh come on! It's been four days. Black’s been monitoring my flying, Green’s monitoring my weapons reflex...Can I please stop?”

‘Well it's not like you got much to do right now.’ Red said from the top of Yellow’s head. 'Other than helping clean up the debris, you can't really help them.’

I whined before laying flat on my side. “I’m just….bored.” 

‘I’m sorry cub, but if makes you feel any better. I still don’t understand your human customs.’ Red said as he looked at my hands with a scowl. ‘If it wasn’t for your family’s endless patience with me, I don’t think many people would try to help me out.”

I snorted. “Red. You literally bit Marco’s hand for trying to help you use a fork during the first dinner together.”

‘I didn’t need help.’

“Oh Red. You need help, you’re just too proud.”

‘He’s not lying.’ Yellow added ad Red slapped his ear gently receiving purrs from his siblings.

I was about to return to my training after the small break when suddenly I heard a clicking sound in the back of my mind and a small humm before I stood up on all fours wagging my tail. “Keith!” I yelled.

“Hey.” I leaned down and tapped my muzzle to his head and he gave a small laugh in response before he climbed onto my nose. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” I purred before turning to the Lions. “I’ll be back later.”

They nodded before Green lifted her tail up. ‘When you get back, we’ll work on your cannon okay? You should be ready for another weapon.’

“Okay!” I hovered a bit before I flew us slowly to the Garrion open area. “Have they found a way to internalize my thoughts? Or change back? Or anything?” I tried not making myself to hopeful though. “I mean, It’s fine if they haven’t or looked into it yet. I know you all have been busy with all the rebuilding and everything….Also Pidgey gets to be with her family again so that’s–”

“Dude. Chill.” I snorted a bit as he said this. “No they haven’t, and yes they have been trying. Pidge, Ryder, Matt and my mom have been looking for ways to try to keep your thoughts to yourself as well as looking for a way to return you. And Lance? I know we haven’t been able to see you as often as we hoped, but we want you back, we all miss you. Not having you around to coddle everyone or brighten our days makes Pidge want to find the solution faster.”

I landed after a bit and laid down as the people outside waved at me as they passed by, getting a tail wag in return. “I do want to return to my body, and be myself again, but as long as no one overworks themselves for me, especially Pidge, I’ll be fine.” He leaned back taking in the sun as I purred with content. 

We talked about what he’s been up to these past few days, when someone disturbed our time together, “Keith.” I watched as he lifted his watch comm. “Come. We should start the training.” I heard Kolivan’s voice. I focused my attention to Kolivan’s face being projected as he had an apologetic look. “I’m sorry to take you away from each other especially now.”

“Yes sir. And...It’s understandable.” Kolivan nodded as he ended the comm call.

“Training?” I was confused. “For what? New Blades?”

“No.” He turned his attention to me. “Commander Iverson asked Kolivan if he and the Blades can train the MFEs and engineers in hand-to-hand combat for safety reasons.” He jumped off my nose before backing away sheepishly. “I should probably get on that.”

“But…” I lowered my ears before sighing. “You know what. Forget it.”

“Lance–”

“Don’t Lance me.” People stopped and stared as Keith shuffled a bit before looking up at me. I stood tall and lowered my head before curling one of my paws around his body. “Keith. I just wanna spend time with you. Is that too much for me to ask?” I said softly.

“I–” He looked at the Garrison building before turning his attention to the ground “We...” I could hear a small whine coming from him.

I sighed before removing my paw. “Forget it.” I said curtly earning a couple of shocked looks from the crowd. I picked up a paw and gently nudged him away. “Go. Train them.” He looked at me with a sad expression and I dimmed my eyes before dropping my muzzle to tap his head. “Before you overthink it, I am not mad at you.” I said softly enough. “It’s not your fault.” I gave a final shove with my nose, “Be careful.” He sighed and made his way inside but not before turning to look at me a couple of times. I laid down and watch the people stroll by, sometimes I gave a small purr as children played in the yard. ‘You know what.’ I thought, but knew people could hear me as some of them turned their attention to me before returning to whatever they were doing. ‘I should do it now while I have the chance.’ I stood up before crouching down, starting my thrusters and shot up in the air.

I was flying silently for a few minutes before I heard the comm click in my mind. “Lance!” I could hear Veronica’s annoyed voice. “Get back here now! You are not authorized to leave Garrison premises.”

“Sorry Ronnie, but no.” I increased my speed and sped passed other parts of the land towards the ocean, making my way to a familiar part of the world. 

“Lance please. Come back.” Keith.

“No Keith. I need to do something.” I slowed down and lowered myself near the water lowering a paw into it. ‘Man I missed the ocean.’ I looked at my reflection to see Red’s face looking back at me with my colored eyes. ‘Huh. That actually looks kinda cool.’ I purred, as I cruised the ocean in a nice content silence other than the sounds of the small waves. 

 

Keith’s POV

I was standing next to my mom and Kolivan as we watched Acxa along with three other Blades take on the four MFEs, when suddenly a specific Garrison siren Pidge created for Lance, went off. A sonic boom erupted and we looked to see Lance flying away from the Garrison. I was the first one running inside followed by the others excluding the engineers and other Blades who made them return to their training. My team, Lance’s family, and the others present in the waiting room all met up in the meeting room, where we decided to keep track of Lance’s progress, to see Veronica frantically turning on the comms and trying to get Lance to come back. I tried as well, but I guess he really was mad. I ran a hand through my hair letting out a shuttered breath. “Dammit Lance.”

“Keith?” I looked at Pidge who looked upset. “He’s upset with us..Isn’t he?”

I looked at her before shaking my head, “He’s...just….wants to spend time with us.” I leaned back into the table and looked at the others. “He said to me that he’s been feeling lonely, like he says he’s okay with us not spending time with him cause of all the rebuilding, but I highly doubt he’s happy.” I rubbed my left arm and looked down. “You heard him, he wanted to spend more time with me today. I felt awful for leaving him.”

Pidge shuffled for a bit before runnings towards the room’s computer and started imputing data. “Look I know everything is kinda strained at the moment and we all been focused on something, but I do got some good news.”

“Did you find a way to control his thoughts?” Marco asked from beside his eldest brother. 

Pidge stopped typing before taking a small breath. “Okay. Semi good news?...While I didn’t find a way to internalize his thoughts, I did managed to connect to his controls and we found out that we are able to do this....” She typed a few more things, before a screen popped up from the rooms monitor which seemed to look like the ocean. Though what was strange was that it was passing by like we were flying near it. I was about to ask Pidge about it when she spoke up herself. “Somehow...we found a way to connect to Lance’s eyes, without him knowing–”

“That’s invasion of privacy Katie.” Shiro said in a slightly disapproving voice.

“I know...” She said with a hint of shame. “But if I was able to connect to his systems, then that must mean I’m getting closer to finding a way to bring him back.” We all crowded around her as she begun typing faster. “See. Since I was able to connect to his eyes, it opens new systems in the lions that we never even knew about, and if I input the code Matt created to focus Lance’s thoughts to himself...” She started mumbling to herself as she types a bit more before the room flickered on and off, then had the low hum of Lance’s flying. She stilled and looked up before a giant smile appeared on her face, “We did it.” She whispered. Her attention turned to her brother who was standing beside her “Matt! It worked! We are close to figuring it out!.” 

He picked her up laughing before sitting her down. “I knew you could do it Katie.” They noticed our confused faces before he started explaining. “See the second day of looking for a way, I noticed that when Lance would speak, it would be his normal voice right? But if he thought of something, his voice becomes more….” He did a weird hand motion. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I guess it sounded more robotic?” 

“He did sound...off,” Lance’s mother added a bit. “I just thought it was cause of his robotic form?”

Matt shook his head. “No Mrs. Serrano, but you are close.” He turned to the screen and had Pidge pull up a side picture of the Red Lion’s head. “See like Pidge said, they have more systems that we don’t know about, but since Lance’s soul switch with it, more data was found as we dug deeper. His open thoughts left an opening that Krolia was able to find.” He pulled up a few more pictures and pointed at one that was Lance’s real face next to Red’s. “See it seems that the mind of a sentient lion is similar to the mind of a human, just more, how can I put it….protected.”

“With everything Coran told us and everything we discovered with our lions these past few...years?...this is something we didn’t know which leads us to wonder. What other things can we discover about them with Lance’s help” Pidge said from her spot.

“Exactly Pidge.” Matt agreed. “See, Lance’s thoughts opened a small hole in the lions tightly guarded minds, Ryder managed to get in and see all the systems.”

“Systems?” Axca questioned from beside Olia.

“Kinda like the brain, it controls specific parts of the lion, we are going to call them systems for now. Anyways, one of these systems controls the thoughts. It seemed like it was broken and while Pidge checked out the others to see how they work, I created a code that could merge with this broken system. Accidentally though, Pidge tapped into his eyes and..” Matt scratched the back of his neck. “Well you know how he screamed the other day? It was kinda our accident, Pidge shut off his eyes which–.”

“You scared my brother!” Rachel said angrily.

Pidge murmured a small sorry before Matt continued. “It was an accident, but it was a good one! It means she was able to control his eyes right?” We looked at each other a bit worried before Matt waved his hands quickly. “No-no! Not like that. God we would never hurt Lance on purpose. Either way, soon after you mess with one of their systems, they go into emergency lockdown, and we can’t hack those. We tried. Well the thought system like I said was damaged so it wasn’t even trying to protect itself.”

“Hold on.” Shiro said waving his hand a bit. “Okay. So I get that you guys managed to get into his mind, but the main question is. Will it hurt Lance?”

Matt shook his head. “No. The code is basically a protestetic in the Lion’s coding systems.” He directed back to the page where a finished thought system was showing blue. “See Lance and Red said they had a head injury correct? Well it’s kinda like human brain damage, which thankfully Lance didn’t get.” We all agreed with that. “The impact must’ve hit Red’s sentient mind and damaged one of it’s systems, the thoughts which is a system that is deeply connected to his voice system. With my code, and Ryder’s way of merging things together, we found a way to heal the broken code.” He turned back to us with a sincere smile. “Once Lance knows, he’ll be able to shut off his own thoughts and control it on his own.”

Sam and Colleen came up to their children and hugged them. “Oh we knew you could do it.” Colleen said softly. 

“I would do anything for Lance.” Pidge said softly looking at Lance’s current view as he looked down at the ocean. His reflection showed his face with dimmed eyes. “He’s like a brother and he would do anything for us.” She smiled as Lance pulled up from the water and into the air. “We haven’t been the best to him, this is as much as we can do.”

“He would be happy you know.” Luis said placing a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe you should tell him now.”

She nodded before tucking a hair behind her ear. “Umm...I don’t want to sound like nosy or anything, but can we keep an eye on him? What if he needs us or something and he couldn’t call us?”

Iverson sat down at one of chairs followed by others. “I guess we could just this once, especially cause the poor kid is still kinda new to the whole Lion situation. I don’t like it especially if it means invading one's’ privacy, but we can use this one time as an experiment to see if the coding will truly work and Lance can have his private thoughts to himself or wherever he directs it.”

Pidge nodded before turning on her comm. “Lance.”

We heard a growl. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Lance mijo. Please listen to us for a moment.” His father asked.

It was silent before he stopped and lowered himself near the water once more. “Yes papi.”

“We think we found a way to contain your thoughts.” Matt said earning a small hum from Lance. “We just need to test it out and see if it’ll work.” 

From his point of view, we can see the area around his eyes dim, which surprised us on how his eyes work. “I knew you guys could do it.”

“Don’t celebrate too soon hermano.” Veronica pointed out. “What if it’s wrong?”

His eyes lit up a bit as he flew faster across the water. “I don’t think it’’ll be entirely wrong. Pidge and Matt are some of the smartest people I ever met, if I can trust anyone to do this, it’ll be those two.”

I side eyed Pidge and noticed tears running down her face as he said this. “Um..Okay Lance...We’ll be controlling from here. Are you sure your fine with us doing this?”

“I trust you Katie.” The room was quiet as he said this with his purr. “Tell me what to do.”

She wiped her eyes before messing with a few things. “Okay Lance, Think to yourself. What is your favorite memory from when you were a child.”

He purred before the screen shut down. Once his eyes open he asked, “Did you hear?”

Matt smiled. “No Lance.” He purred again. “Okay one more time, but this time it’s going to broadcast into one room specifically.”

“Okay.”

Matt looked down with a frown before looking back up, “What is your biggest fear.”

“Never being enough.” We were all silent as the room was filled with Lance’s low hum. “And failing those I love–Can we drop this actually? I honestly don’t want to talk about this and I’m about to arrive to my destination.”

Matt gave a sympathetic expression before, “Yeah. Just be careful and return soon okay?”

“Yes sir.” He purred making us all smile at his returning personality. “I’ll be back before sunset.” Pidge quickly turned to us and after getting a confirmation nod from Iverson and Lance’s parent’s, she cut off our end of the comm and we kept an eye on him. 

Kolivan contacted one of the Blades during this and asked if he could hear Lance’s voice, we were relieved to hear that they could no longer hear his voice. That Blade was concerned only to be told that he was fine and Iverson sent an announcement saying not to worry about the sudden loss of Lance. Speaking of Lance, his eyes lit up after a few minutes before gaining speed. ‘Finally.’

Sylvio pointed at the screen from beside the other kids on top of the table. “Daddy! That’s home! Is Uncle Lance going home?” 

“Yes mijo.” Luis said softly as his gaze never left the screen. “Lance is going home.”

He stopped at some beach looking both ways before sighing. “It’s been a while.” He walked across the beach looking around and I could hear Lance’s family speaking softly to each other in Spanish. We saw damaged buildings, debris throw everywhere from the damages around and scattered Galran Sentries broken on the ground. “Woah.” We could see his head tilt to the side a bit. “This is going to take a while to clean up.” He then continued on before his eyes dimmed, “Okay. Where are they...”

Most of us were confused as he said this until Nadia spoke up from beside Orion. “He’s gonna go see Tita and Tito.” She tugged on her brother’s shirt. “Syli, he’s gonna go visit them.”

“Excuse me little one.” Coran said from his spot next to Allura. “Who is this Tito and Tita?”

“Grandma is Tita and Grandpa is Tito.” Sylvio said. “They died during the attack.” ‘Wow.’ I thought. ‘Kinda morbid.’

Coran’s expression changed a bit. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear.”

It got slightly awkward and everyone turned to the screen to see Lance moving in towards a cemetery full of broken gravestones. “Okay….Papi said they were buried in the cemetery closest to the sea. So it’s this cemetery. He also said they are closest to the sandy beach.” He carefully walked around before lowering his head and reading the tombstones.. “Mirella….Antonietta….Juan…Mateo...Oh!” He whined before his eyes dimmed down.

“He found them.” His father whispered as Lance lowered his head to the earth and the screen went blank staying silent for a few seconds before we heard sobbing.

“Tito, Tita...Mami told me what you told her. Thank you for never giving up on me. I uhh...man I don't know what to tell you. If I did I would be here all day….Ok so..I met aliens? Most were cool, some wouldn't hesitate to kill me. Okay so quick summary...we found a robotic lion, went into space to fight a zombie and his witches with a robot man formed by five robotic lions, found space ninjas, found rebels, got tied to a tree...again, had a huge bi panic for who knows how long, met mermaids, fell in love and now i'm a robotic lion.” he laughed a bit sadly. “There a so many people I wanted you two to meet, I know you would've loved them. Also. I have a boyfriend I wanted you to meet. He's pretty awesome.” I kinda shrunk I fear of what he would say about me. “I will not lie. He's awkward and unsociable. Not his fault though.” He raised his head to look at the sky. “It was funny though. I admired him for so long, I tried being his friend in the Garrison only to be brushed off. I want to say being with him in space was dumb luck, but was it?” My eyes softened as he spoke. “You once told me Tita that everything happens for a reason right?” he sighed before closing his eyes. “Te extraño. Te extraño tanto.”

I was confused when his brother Marco repeated what he said. “I miss you. I miss you so much.”

“Extraño todo que hicimos, especialmente cuando preparamos carne asada cerca del mar. Extraño cuando era pequeña y me llevabas en tus brazos cuando tenía miedo.” The screen was turning a light blue as the screen shook a bit. “Lo siento….por irme Tito, Tita...Un dia los voy a vee otra vez…” He gave a small strained laugh and I heard most of his family begun crying during his talk which most of us were confused. “Casi vine a verte a los dos hace una semana, pero no de la manera que hubieras querido. Te amo mucho,” His eyes became normal as he leaned his nose down and rested it beside their tombstones, “I'll visit again soon, maybe i’ll bring the family to visit. I love you two so much. We'll cross paths again again someday.” 

“What did he say?” Olia asked Rachel.

Rachel gazed sadly at her. “Somethings aren’t meant to be heard by others.” Her muzzle twitches in understanding as her youngest son Orion hugged Nadia as she sniffled. 

We heard him get up as he continued on looking around to what seemed like it was once a nice looking house. His eyes dimmed as he closed in and stuck his head into the broken wall. “It's been a while.” Most of were shocked as he moved some things with his claw and saw some old frames showing photos of his family. 

One photo stood out, it was large, expanded above their television, his family sat down surrounded by a beachside campfire with the large moon projecting behind them as they looked at Lance who had a smile on his face looking down at a guitar in his hands. “You guys didn’t know he played guitar?” Lisa said from beside her husband. “He never told anyone. That picture was taken by a college photographer who was taking pictures for his college class.” 

“That is quite a lovely photo that boy took.” Krolia commented from beside me.

Marco gave a small laugh before speaking, “That kid apparently passed with a hundred. Lance kept in touch with him. They became friends, but that was known cause Lance befriends anyone.” He leaned forward on the table watching as his brother looked around the damaged home. “Lance only played the guitar when someone asked him to or when he was alone. He sang often to, especially to the kids when they had nightmares.” 

I smiled softly and thought about asking him once he returned to his normal form when we heard him growling. “Who’s there!” We all looked up quickly as his gaze shifted around. “I said, who’s there.” His growling became more violent as the lights tinted red around.

The team was tense, ready to go to the Lions when Lance’s mother held a hand and gave us a wait motion. We hesitated, but complied and waited a bit when we heard, “Lance?” 

I could here a gasp coming from Shiro as he recognized that voice. Some others seemed to notice, but nobody wanted to get their hopes up. We could see Lance's eyes lose the red tint and he tilted his head. “That's me.” He shifted around to see a guy walking up to him. A similar skin color as Lance, built a bit like Shiro with light brown hair wearing glasses. He had a black v neck with an army green jacket as well as jeans and black shoes. There was a huge scar running down from his left eye down under his clothes that looked like it was from some sort of burn mark. Lance lifted his head up and stared down at the man slowly walking up to him. “No puede ser…” 

“It's been a while Lancito.”

“Adam??”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lions moved themselves towards the desert to train Lance, Red comes with them often to explain his powers, Keith arrived by Cosmo who left quickly cause he was playing with the kids and wanted to return. 
> 
> Axca is a Blade.
> 
> The inner workings of the sentients mind is a similar structure to our human minds that made it easier for Matt and Pidge to understand, Ryder helped fuse different types of human coding to Altean coding and Krolia helped by finding passages into the mind. Think of systems like the small parts of the mind of a human, but they are mainly computer codings and what not. Adding a code is like a protestetic, it helps...Pidge was able to hack into the eyes only by being able to watch from them, she can no longer control them, once the thoughts fuse, she will no longer be able to control them either.
> 
> I head cannon that Adam and Veronica were close friends, he met Lance and he became basically a mentor figure to him as well as another brother. 
> 
>  
> 
> Spanish Translation:  
> Te extraño. Te extraño tanto: I miss you, I miss you so much.
> 
> Extraño todo que hicimos, especialmente cuando preparamos carne asada cerca del mar. Extraño cuando era pequeña y me llevabas en tus brazos cuando tenía miedo: I miss everything we did, especially when we made roast meat near the sea. I miss when I was little and you carried me in your arms when I was afraid.'
> 
> Lo siento….por irme Tito, Tita...Un dia los voy a vee otra vez: I'm sorry ... for leaving Tito, Tita ... One day I'll see you again ...
> 
> Casi vine a verte a los dos hace una semana, pero no de la manera que hubieras querido. Te amo mucho: I almost came to see you two about a week ago, just not the way you would have wanted. Love you very much
> 
> no puede ser: it can't be 
> 
>  
> 
> What did you think? This as necessary for something that is going to happen later. Who's ready for Adam? I actually liked him for those few.....scenes..I decided he's going to live.. tell me what you think! comment down below and hope you enjoy the Lion Switch Au!
> 
> ~Shadows


	6. Family and Love Is All You Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I took a while cause this chapter is super long and i'm....A college student as well as having a full time job soooo....yeah...
> 
> How do Adam and Lance know each other? What will happen between Shiro and Adam? What happened between Lance and the Llamas?!?
> 
> Find out in this chapter!
> 
> It's more of a revelation chapter as well as a big ole' fluff so any action....will be coming soon *Ominous background music*
> 
>  
> 
> By the way: You wanna see some AMVs created by me? I'm on YOUTUBE so subscribe to me if you want to see more AMVs in the nearby future! If you're one of my readers, comment on the video and i'll give you a shoutout in the next video or chapter!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2cTu3hT3NCerWlT9-PNT6A?view_as=subscriber

Lance’s POV

“Adam??” 

He gave a small smile. “It’s me primito.”

I felt my body shaking before I plopped onto the ground and surrounded his frame with both paws around him. “What happened? How did you survive? Did anyone else from the Garrison survive? How did you get here in Cuba? Why didn’t you come back? How––”

“Lance.” His voice was firm which made me stop for a bit and he leaned on the back of one of my paws. “You are worse than a toddler first learning the word why.”

I purred. “Leave me be.”

“I’ll tell you, but you should come out of the lion first.”

I stilled before I sighed. “I….am the Lion…”

He was silent before he crossed his arms. “Kinda had that feeling.”

“You been watching me?” 

“Some strange aircraft comes and lands, what do you think I was going to do?” He walked towards my nose and laid a hand on it. “I had a feeling it was you though. One, I’m your cousin. I literally recognized the way you were reminiscing as you made your way around the island and two, I overheard you talk to our abuelos.” His green eyes softened, “They were proud of you Lance, we all are.”

I made a small choking noise, since I physically can't cry, “Te extrañaba Adam.”

“Yo tambien chiquito.” He backed away before turning his attention to the ocean. “So I guess you wanna know.” 

I purred as I lifted a paw to my muzzle. “Yeah. Climb on.” 

He chuckled before climbing onto my nose and I made our way to the beach where we grew up. “So this started back when we first found out about you guys and the whole Aliens situation.”

I laid down and lowered my head resting it on the sandy beach feeling the sun’s heat radiating off my metal coat. “Sam mentioned something about it.”

He laid between my eyes and gave a small sigh. “I wish you knew how I was feeling that day. I was happy, you and Shiro were still alive, sad that you guys were gone, scared about how much you risked everyday, regretful that I didn't follow you that day.”

“I told you man. We should've hit the town.”

He gave a small laugh. “Kid. I might be your cousin, but in the Garrison I'm your professor. Anyways besides all that I was proud of you two.” I purred as he continued. “Ok so the jets we had were commanded by Sanda even though Sam was against it. I was among the first ones cause you know, seniority rule. Me including 9 others went for it, but as you know.”

“It wasn't that effective…” I whined.

Adam nodded. “The thing is….the jets did explode but there was an emergency protocol for a situation similar to what happened….it was to eject us from the jet to escape, but as soon as that happened there was some sort of beam and took us into their ships.”

I growled. “Sendak's main ship correct?” He nodded. “Okay then how did you escape?” 

“I waited until his lieutenant started dragging me to a cell. Kicked him the way you taught me--”

“Woah woah hold on.” I felt my body shaking with mirth. “You literally did a backwards “Grand Battement” as a way to escape?”

I could see his ears turn pink. “If it works, use it right? Besides you can fight with dancing if you use it right. Did that high kick before knocking him out….DON'T LAUGH LANCITO!”

I lifted my head a bit and shook it up and down in laughter. “Out of all the ways to escape, you chose a high kick!” I laid it back on the ground as I saw a half heated glare from him. “Why that move though?”

“Well remember when all of your siblings, you and I all went out and a guy grabbed you holding a gun?” I snorted. “You kicked him,and did a high roundhouse kick to his face knocking him out? Well I applied that to this situation. I give you credit though….that kick was impressive and I'm pretty glad you forced me to do all those types of pretzel moves.”

I purred. “Still can't beat me flexibility.”

“You can aerial dance as well as pole dance, that shit takes lots of core muscle and flexibility.” He slid around and faced me. “Anyways moving on from your pole dancing-”

“Be jealous.” I said lifting my tail. “Be jealous of my skills with a pole.”

He close his eyes and looked down laughing softly. “I can do like two moves. Anyways, after that. I managed to sneak around the ship since I noticed that the others were being held captive as well. I found DiAngelo, Michael, Laura and Lin being held captive in cells surrounded by like maybe 5 sentries?”

“How'd you take them down?”

“I took the gun from the lieutenant, still a shitty shot but managed to take them out.” He answered. 

I lifted my head once more as he said this. “Do you need help? I was the sniper for Voltron. Once I return to my body, I can help you aim.”

“That would be great actually.” I gave a small nod and lowered my head as he continued on, “Once I got them out, I led them to the area where they held their own form of jets and stole 5.”

“Then… Why didn't you return if you had the chance? You got the fighters and with those things you guys would have a larger advantage?”

He turned his gaze towards me sadly. “The Garrison held people inside their barrier and protected as many as they could, but what about the others?”

“So you stayed to defend them.”

Adam laid his head between my eyes. “We thought if we tried to return then they would aim fire at us, so we landed near the state of Texas. We met with others and decided to stay and get as many to safety as we could, traveled around and using the jets which actually were self-fueled by the way, managed to stay hidden and attack smaller clusters of those Galran groups. We did that for years, honestly many were starting to lose hope, but once we saw the lions, it awoken their faith again.

“About a week ago, did you happen to see an explosion?” I questioned.

“Yeah. We saw all lions trying to lift that other one, but one lion surrounded it as the others detached from it. Now that I see you, I guess the one who finished the job?”

“Yeah. See Red was the fastest lion, I might be the one of the small lions, but we were able to convert into a rocket. We were only fast enough to send that hostile up, not to evade the explosion which is how I became this.”

Adam was silent for a bit before he turned. “That was brave Lance.” He placed a hand between my eyes and gave it a pat. “Bet that scared your mom.”

“I don’t know, I was dead.”

He twisted around facing me completely with wide eyes. “What?”

I sighed before lifting my head up. “That explosion killed me. All I remembered was a bright light and that’s it. Red said he gave me a slight shock to stimulate me long enough to go into surgery. Said he heard those around him mourn for me and also refused to lose me.” I lowered it once more and closed my eyes. “Keith said in midst of the surgery, something happened and both Red and I screamed, then we went silent. They think during that moment was when we swapped places.” I saw him about to say something before I shook my head a bit. “I really can’t explain it, have them all tell you so just finish your side.”

He stared at me before he sighed. “Alright...Well from where we were, we saw your lion come crashing down fast being chased by all the other lions. I wanted to go see, but with what happened, we decided against it and let the Garrison handle it. Today I was checking out the areas in South America as well as the islands located near North America. Cuba was actually my last spot, and after my mission, I went to visit Michele when I heard something. I looked to see you landing, but when I saw how you were looking around, I was thinking, “Lance?” So I followed.”

I purred. “I'm glad you did.” I decided to sit up when something popped into my mind. “Adam?”

“Yeah kid?”

“Do you still love Shiro?”

He gave a soft laugh. “I never stopped.”

I purred once more before fully standing. “Well I been out of the Garrison area for a while. I don’t need them to worry about me so I should probably head back.” He tilted his head. “Come with me Adam. They’ll be excited to see you again, and you need to make up with Shiro.”

Adam looked down before smiling and looking at me again. “Okay, but I need to go meet up with the others first. We’re supposed to meet in Florida here soon. I'll tell them once we meet so you can lead us.” 

I was on our way to his fighter when I remembered somethings “Can you do me a favor?” He raised an eyebrow. “I'm too big. Can you go into my house and grab some things for me?” He nodded and I made my way to the house. He stepped off me and into the house. “That huge picture...okay now you see that drawer? No to your right...that one. Open it and grab..yes!”

I opened the cockpit in my stomach area and allowed him to place then inside although I wiggled a lot. “I'm guessing you're still ticklish in this form?” 

I growled playfully as he returned to the house. “Okay now go to my room...grab that guitar and strings….also get that blanket.”

“Your baby blanket? Why?”

I stuck my nose near the window. “Cause it’s the closest thing I have to Tita and Tito. I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

“Makes sense. Although later in the future it can be passed to your kids.” He grabbed the items and was about to go before something gleamed. “Hey isn't….”

I gasped before dimming my eyes. “I left it at the Garrison?”

He grabbed it and walked towards me. “Vero must've brought it in when we went home to tell your parents. Remember when Tito gave us each one all those years ago?”

“Yeah. Marco obviously gave Lisa his, the other three were wearing it when I first arrived.” He started stuffing the things in my cockpit and I hummed in slight content. “Do you still have yours?” 

He walked out and I shut it as he made his way towards my nose. “Well I planned on giving it to Shiro, but...” He climbed up and I made my way to his fighter. “I planned on giving it to him on our 3rd anniversary, but he went on that mission.” He pulled out a necklace from under his shirt. It was a silver chain with a silver hollow heart in the middle filled with little black gemstones in in the heart and one large orange gemstone in the center. “Tito had one each custom made for every grandchild he had.”

“He was good at that kinda thing, with him being a jewelry maker.” I said. “Lift mine?” Mine was similar in shape as all of us were with red stones and the large one being blue. “Wonder how he chose these colors.”

Adam lowered it and placed it around his neck to keep it safe for me. “Tito had these ways of combining two colors, one representing us, and one who would fill in the other. I mean Marco’s large gemstone color was forest green and Lisa’s little ones were light pink.” 

“True. Always thought he was a wizard cause of that. Or a psychic.” I purred out a laugh as we made our way to the fighter. “Dang, it’s pretty well kept.”

“Kinda like a guy’s first car right?” He said with a smirk. “Let’s go.” He shot off first with me trailing beside him. We messed around on our way to the others but it didn’t take more then 20 minutes to arrive. He landed first as the other fighters were already there and I landed over the fighter. The others crowded around me warily and Adam stood in front with arms open in a peace motion. “Guys, this is the Red Lion, part of Voltron that Sam was talking about.”

The tan girl with short blonde hair walked forward and kept his gaze, “How do you know we can trust it?”

“Well hello to you too Lin.” I purred as I lowered my head next to Adam. “You have every right to be cautious though.”

Her eyes widened and looked at me. “Lance?”

“In the…” I looked at my body before turning back. “Metal coat…”

“Woah back it up.” DiAngelo, A dark skinned boy with wavy black hair said as he walked forward. “Lance? As in Adam’s little cousin? The same one who I often snuck out to the city?”

I held up a paw. “One, yes, and two, try sneaking me out now. There’s a signal in the Garrison when I leave the area.” I huffed and shook my coat. “It’s kinda like i have one of those ankle monitors they used for people who were on house arrest except mine is literally in my system.”

“They have a right to worry though” Adam said as he leaned on my paw. “Heck you’re probably giving them a heart attack right now, not knowing when you’ll come back and stuff.” 

I was going to answer when the other girl bounced forward and touched my muzzle with stars in her blue eyes. “Oh my god! You are so cute! Well you were always cute, but you know.” She jumped on my nose and walked between my eyes making me purr in delight. “How did this happen? Is your body like decomposed? How did you find Adam? Is Veronica doing well? Are you still single?”

I lifted my muzzle and bounced it a few making her laugh. “Chill out Laura. I know I’m cute, how the heck did you think I got away with almost everything? I am like this cause the explosion actually killed me and the spirit of the Red Lion brought me back long enough for them to perform surgery on me, something backfired in us which made me and Red switch places. No my body isn’t decomposed, Red is in my body and my family is trying to teach him how to be human. I was in Cuba reminiscing and ran into my cousin. She’s doing fine, and no I’m not.” I cocked my head a bit before sliding her off. “To get the whole story, talk to my other family members and friends.” I lifted my head back up before tilting it to look at them. “Will you guys return with me? I want the other to know you’re alright.”

Michael, a pale skinned male with brown hair tied in a man-bun, raised an eyebrow. “If we go with you, what makes you think they would allow us to go around and do our normal things like protecting the other?”

I lifted my tail and lowered my ears. “They shouldn’t keep you from leaving, you been doing this for years, besides, I can’t help in the Garrison, so I can follow along if you guys would allow that.

He stared before smiling, “Kid, do you even need to ask? You’re always welcomed to be with us. Missed your…” He did a hand motion. “Upbeat personality and all that stuff. Everyone missed you, it wasn’t the same when you left.” He crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “And besides...having you will also assist us with large thing we can’t move and move cargo around slightly quicker.”

“Yes!” I stood up quickly. “You have no idea how badly I been wanting to help. My size is making it hard though.”

They went into their jets and hovered around me. Once ready I shot off with them flanking me in a V-formation. Since Arizona wasn’t that far, it only took us with their jets 20 minutes. 

I closed my eyes and forced the click in the comm to turn on. “Garrison attendance, this is Lance, get outside, I have people many of you would like to meet.”

I hovered in the open area and landed followed by the jets in front of me. I looked up and purred as I watched everyone run out.

Shiro’s POV

As we watched Lance talking to Adam, I felt tear pouring out of my eyes. My team surrounded me as Sam came forward and allowed me to cry on his shoulder. “I can’t believe he’s alive.”

“I can’t believe it either.” Sam told me softly as he wiped his own tears. “I wish we had known.”

We watched as their conversation went on, and heard his story, I felt pride for him as he told Lance about how he escaped, I was a bit shocked when I heard he was able to do some pole dancing. 

“Hold on.” I turned to Keith whose eyes were wide with shock. “I’ve known Lance was flexible, he did yoga in the mornings before breakfast and he did an aerial dance for the Voltron Coalition, but he knows how to literally pole dance?”

I could see a smirk forming on Rachel’s face. “Oh? Are you interested in a show?” He blushed and lowered his head in his hands as she came forward and poked his hand with a teasing coo. “Ay que lindo!” She said before pulling him into a side hug. “Lance is an amazing dancer, can do just about any dance if he puts his mind to it, he started aerial dancing as a bet and fell in love with it, pole dancing just came naturally once he learned the aerial form.” She turned to me with a soft smile. “Adam always went with him to practices when you guys were allowed out of the Garrison, he’s pretty flexible himself just not to Lance’s extent.”

I smiled fondly as I remembered every morning he would do yoga similar to Lance’s when we were in space. I furrowed my eyebrows when I remembered. “Why didn’t he ever mention being Lance’s cousin?”

“It was kinda known?” Veronica said a bit confused. “We kinda just let people find out we’re related. Ever wondered why he was often with us both?”

I shook my head. “Not really? I was often caring for Keith, so I just assumed he did the same with an underclassmen and you two were close so I never really was bothered.”

“Let’s back up a bit.” Kinkade said before placing his hands near his mouth in a small prayer like motion before moving them a bit to point at Rachel. “How are you guys related? Like is Adam’s mom or dad related to your mom and dad? Also, what did he mean by a guy held him at gunpoint?”

She did a little hand motion before pushing her hair behind her head. “His mom and our dad are siblings, but she married and had her last name changed which is his last name is Woods. His father was an American who came on vacation one year and met her, they fell in love and he chose to stay in Cuba to marry her. They had two children, Adam and….” She stopped looking down.

“Michele.” Veronica said softly. “His family...They were in an accident that lost their lives.”

I flinched a bit at the memory. “I remember that. We were studying one day and he received a call. He started crying and I went with him to this one commander that retired years ago if he could leave.” I closed my eyes before sighing. “I didn’t know what to do for a week once he returned, he was just...gone…”

“Like we said mijo.” Lance’s father said softly from his spot in a chair. “Family is everything. We lost three people dear to us, while Adam lost his entire family to a drunk driver.” 

The room was silent before Luis softly spoke up. “To answer that other question, Cuba is kinda dangerous at night and to see someone you love being held at gunpoint was something that we could never forget.”

Marco sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. “Lance was running ahead of us that day cause he was trying to get to an ice cream bar that’s open until 3 in the morning. When we all caught up their was a man holding Lance with his arms behind him and a gun to his head.”

“That was terrifying to see.” Veronica said leaning forward in her seat. “To see your little brother in that position put us in tight position, we didn’t know what to do, but Lance, he was expressionless.”

“That kid, when angry, he is angry.” Rachel said shaking her head. “He threatened him, but as soon as we showed and threatened us, Lance’s eyes changed. He did a backwards high kick and hit the man hard before roundhouse kicking the man in the face like Adam said. It knocked him out and Lance chained him to a ole before unloading the gun. This tourist called the cops during it and arrested the man. Turns out he was a robber they were looking for weeks prior to this.”

“I always thought Lance was..clumsy.” Pidge said from her spot next to the computer. “He really did have the right to be angry with us.” 

Our little team lowered their heads in shame, before I looked up. “Then that just means we'll just have to show him how much he means to us all. Won't we?” They smiled and nodded as we returned our attention to the screen.

We continued watching until we saw them going back to Lance’s home grabbing that large portrait and a hard drive. “What’s so important about that hard drive?” Pidge questioned Marco.

“It’s filled with every single family and relative photos we ever took. We can show you all one day. It’s got videos of when we were all little if you guys are interested?” Most of us nodded while others had a simple smile. Like I said, I want to understand my little brother's future mate more. Marco turned to his family with a sly grin. “Now it wouldn't be tradition if we didn't embarrass lance in front of his loved ones right?” 

“Aw.” Lance's mother clasped her hands together. “Lance was such a little cutie. You all must see the one video of him and the Llamas.” His family laughed which brightened the mood like this family is usually able to do.

We heard about their necklaces and I was shocked to see Adam’s was my color that I symbolized in Voltron. I felt tears run down once more as he spoke about it and I heard a soft gasp from Keith as he noticed their colors intertwined in Lance’s heart. “Those are amazing.” I said softly.

“They are.” Lisa lifted hers from her neck as Luis held her close. “Their grandfather made them for his grandchildren as Adam said. Luis gave me his when he proposed to me.”

Krolia, who was sitting next to Lisa, gently held it in her hands and observed it. “And they symbolize?”

“Love.” Marco said as he pulled out his showing teal stones leading into a gold stone in the center. “Love for your family which our family color is silver, Love for yourself which is the large center stone and the little ones is basically representing the trail leading into our heart and becoming part of the Serrano family.”

Veronica took hers out too showing a dark purple stones leading to the large lavender stone. “Tito was, as Adam said, a man who created jewelry. He made these without anyone knowing and gave it to us during our family reunion about 7 years ago.”

Rachel showed us hers as well, diamonds leading into the large maroon stone. “We all knew Tito poured his soul into these, we all took it seriously and made a pact to give it to someone we knew we loved. When Michele died, he didn't have the chance to meet his loved one so we buried it with him because it was his and his alone.”

“It’s that important huh?” Kinkade said from his spot near James. “To have something that represents you all.”

Luis nodded. “Familia is everything to us, and when our Tito gave us these, it just meant more to us to uphold our family name.” He gently grabbed Lisa’s necklace and pointed to the writing that barely anyone was able to see even from Lance’s eyes. ‘Be the sword and shield, as well as the heart and soul. -Tito’ He often said this to us as we grew up.”

“That makes such sense.” Allura said softly as she kept her gaze on the screen as they flew across the ocean. “He did anything to protect us, and make us smile.” She looked down with a small frown. “During the battle in Naxela, we followed the clones orders and ignored Lance’s wanting to leave which got us stuck in that bomb of a planet. He spoke to me and said I was the heart of Voltron, but if we are being honest, it truly is Lance.”

I felt my chest tightened. “I’m sorry that happened.”

Hunk shook his head. “No man. It wasn’t you, and also, I blame us all for not having the same feeling. Our curiosity outmatched that ominous feel that Lance felt.” 

Keith looked at us confused before shaking his head and returning his attention to the screen. It was nice to see Lance flying peacefully and his mood is much better compared to when he left. We could hear him purr as Adam spun around laughing. Lance joined him and both sped low near the water, before pulling up high. The two messed around, but making their way to Florida within a good speed. They landed in a clear area where four other fighters were already waiting. “Oh my god! She's alive!” Veronica yelled happily before her eyes begun watering. “I thought she died.”

“Was she close to you?” Nadia, we'll call her Razavi since her name is the same as Lance’s niece, questioned her.

Veronica nodded. “We were best friends, she often liked flirting with Lance though.” She turned to Keith with a wink. “Don't worry. Laura was never into Lance in that way.” She returned her attention to the screen with a half smile. “She was my first friend here in the Garrison.”

Her speaking of Lin reminded me of the first time I met Adam.

~Flashback~

'Okay….’ I said as looked at the slip on my hand. ‘Dorm: Saturn Hall...Room 332...okay then…” I looked up and found the map before locating my dorm hall. 'Okay. I'm two hallways away. Cool.” I walked down the hall with my luggage before making it down my hall. “Room 326….328...330….oh! 332 sweet.” I swiped the room key before it allowed me in. I walked in to see a guy with brown hair already setting up pictures in a decorated bulletin board with a beach theme to it. His bed covers were already set to his style, an ocean blue with three decorated pillows and his computer already set with a photo of him and Im guessing his family? I shuffled a bit before clearing my throat. “Hi.” He turned his attention towards me, green colored eyes looking confused before a soft smile crossed his face. “My name is Shirogane Takashi.”

I held out my hand which he gave a quick look at before chuckling. “A little formal are we?” His voice had a thick accent to it. “Japanese correct?” He said as he gently shook my hand. I nodded and he smiled wider. “Que lindo eres.” I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion as he laughed softly. “Nothing. My name is Adam Woods.” He stepped back before returning to his desk and opening a drawer showing a glasses case. “Do you want help setting up your side of the room?” I smiled and took the offer. We talked and spoke throughout the time and that's when I started thinking, ‘Was this love at first sight for me?’

~~~~

“Shiro.” I heard my name being whispered. I looked to see Sam looking at me with concerned eyes. “You okay?”

I used my arm to rub my eyes a bit. “I was just….reminiscing meeting Adam. What did I miss?”

“Nothing other than them coming back.” 

I stiffened and let out a shuttered breathe. “So I get to see Adam once more?”

I felt someone lay a hand on my shoulder. “He still loves you mijo.” I looked to see Lance's father standing beside me with his family smiling behind him. “After you left for the mission, he never once blamed you.” I could feel a small weight lifted off my shoulder when I remembered that Lance’s family was still Adam’s. “Por favor mijo, for your sake and Adam’s talk it out. A relationship doesn’t work if one side is giving it their all. They must meet each other halfway.” 

“Adam told us you didn’t really get along with your family..” I looked to see his mother walking close to me and she laid a gentle hand on my cheek. ‘Is this how Keith felt?’ She smiled softly. “When family doesn’t support each other, it’s one of the most painful things to experience, but remember this, you have your family you created in space and also.” She laid her other hand on my other cheek as she wiped my tears I didn’t know were falling. “You have us here as well. And even though Adam never had the chance fully introduce you to us as his. We approve of you already and we know that his family would have approved of you as well.” My eyes soften as I lowered my head on her shoulder. “Take care of our nephew.” 

I closed my eyes letting this moment pass before we hear a forced click which shocked Pidge. “He forced the communications?” 

“Garrison attendance” We all stood up facing Lance's screen to see him gazing towards Adam's fighter. “This is Lance, get outside, I have people many of you would like to meet.”

“Let's go everyone.” They all agreed before following me through the halls of the Garrison building. 

People were already gathering as Lance landed with the fighters landing under his belly as he stood protectively over them. “People of the Garrison Base,” His voice rang throughout the Garrison building once more confusing Pidge the most of us all. “As you know, I flew off right around noon.” He looked to the side with a purr. “I was gone for like maybe five hours? But hey...Good news. I don't get sunburned...unless metal coats can get a tan?” He looked at his fur. “Did I get a tan? Am I the Maroon Lion now?” I laughed as well as many others as he seemed to make this lighthearted. I could see Keith covering his smile with his hand as we made our way in front of him. Lance lowered his front half of his body and covered the fighters in an attempt to hide them from us. “Anyways in my time away, I ran into some old Garrison Pilots….” While most of us already seen through his screen, seeing them in person is a much different feeling. “Welcome back, DiAngelo, Lin, Laura, Micheal and Adam…” He lifted himself as the five of them walked down their fighters. 

Those in the Garrison who knew of them crowded attempted to crowd around them when Lance released a warning growl. Laura ran forward into the hands of a couple crying, Michael ran to a teenage girl and and older woman, DiAngelo ran to three small kids, two woman and one man, Lin looked around for a bit and was just about to give up before a couple came running towards her with an elderly man behind. “Mijo!” I could hear Lance’s mother shout gaining his attention quickly. All of the Serranos went running towards him and engulfed him into a group hug with Lance lowering his head and purred as they cried in their circle. Lance curled a paw around them before exchanging soft words with them. 

I felt a nudge on my back and looked behind me to see Commander Iverson pushing me forward. “I think it’s time for you two to make up. The both of you want each other and it’ll be dumb of you not to take this chance after everything that’s happened to the both of you.” I smiled before taking a breath and walked forward. I stood near them as they kept their attention to Adam but I could feel Lance’s gaze on me. “Adam.”

They all turned around and I could see Adam look directly at me with a slightly shocked expression. “Takashi?”

I nodded before I made my way to him, his family clearing the way as I pulled him into a hug. I could feel him tense for a few seconds before he relaxed and returned the hug. I closed my eyes and lowered my head on his shoulder. “I'm so sorry Adam.” I held him tighter as he laid his head down on my shoulder as well. “I shouldn’t have left.”

I was silent before, “Lance? Could you…”

“On it.” He curled his paws around Adam and I to shield us from the others, then laid his head down before purring. “I’ll shut down for a bit so you can have actual privacy, wake me up by touching my paw.” 

A small whirl sound came from him before he went silent leaving me alone with Adam. “Adam.”

“Shut up and let me speak first.” His voice was soft but stern. I nodded as he pulled away from me only to lean forward and touched our foreheads together. “Before you apologize once more, I just want you to know, I never stopped loving you.”

“I never stopped loving you either.” I closed my eyes as I felt warms tears falling down my cheeks. “The only reason I left is because I didn’t want you to see me die.” I opened my eyes to see his large green eyes gazing at me. “During my last doctors appointment, I was told I had less than two years, I just...I couldn’t let you see me die. I took the mission knowing that I would die.”

“Takashi…” Adam placed his hands gently on both sides of my cheeks. “I’m sorry I made you choose. I understood why, but I just couldn’t.” The tears finally spilled over as he looked down. “I knew it was selfish but...I wanted you to stay with me. I wanted to be with you in your last years, but you chose to leave. Yes I was made, but I never stopped thinking about you ever.”

“I have so much to tell you...I want you to tell me what's happened since I left.” I said softly as he wrapped his arms around my neck. “I want to continue on what we had before Adam. I love you so much.” I whispered to him. 

“I love you too Takashi.” I smiled before wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him closer to me. I leaning in for a kiss which he met me halfway, this kiss was gentle at first before I deepened the kiss. He pulled away first before giving a small wink, “Not here with Lance guarding us.”

I laughed softly before kissing his temple and laying my head on his shoulder again. After a few minutes of silence, Adam pulled away to kiss me once more before backing away to tap Lance's paw. Lance made a whirl sound before looking down with dimmed eyes. “You two make up?”

“Si chiquito.” Adam said with a fond eye roll. “Although we have much to talk about later.” He gave me a look over. “I especially want to know why you have white hair, a scar and robotic arm.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder and chuckled as everyone joined us closer to Lance. “So much shit Adam. And you have to tell me about your scar across your body.” 

“This is awesome.” He curled his paws around the entire group purring. “I'm so happy I could cry--” There was a roar coming from Black as he flew over and he hovered over Lance with Red on his nose. Red growled at him and Lance whined. “Seriously! I just found--” Black growled at him and Lance uncurled himself from us before standing. “Oh come on! Green is a slave driver!” Pidge chuckled receiving a glare from Red before he growled at Lance again. “But--” Black grabbed him by his tail and flew away as Lance screamed, “That hurts! At least get me by my neck or something!”

“Pobre Lancito.” Luis said with a chuckle. “He's got some strict teachers.” 

Most of us nodded before Commander Iverson stepped forward and placed a hand of Adam's shoulder. “It's great to see you again Woods.”

Adam snorted before pulling him into a hug. “Don't go professional on me when I just got back.” 

Iverson gave a small laugh before hugging him back. “You seriously are a Serrano. We missed you all Adam.” Iverson pulled away before giving a final pat. “If you'll excuse me, I must go make sure the other four will settle in fine.” We gave a salute before he walked away.

Adam turned to his family, “So mi tio. Where am I staying?” 

His uncle grabbed him in a headlock before laughing. “We actually were given one of the larger rooms because you, Vero and Lance are apart of this program. Pero we actually have way much more space then we needed.” 

“That is why Lancito's novio y el familia are staying with us, Olia y sus niños, as well as Shiro.” His aunt said with a nod. “With them all staying with us, we are able to help them understand more about humans while the kids get more friends to be with as well as showing Red how to properly be a human.”

Adam gave me a look of fake betrayal. “How dare you steal my family. After everything?”

I smiled and laid my chin on his shoulder. “I really did miss your dramatics. After spending time with them I can see where you and Lance got them.” 

He pecked my cheek before turning to the group. “Hey Lance said something about not being able to spend much time with you guys.”

“We really haven't.” Keith said while uncrossing his arms. “Between rebuilding, sending out scouts to other areas in the systems, getting everyone settled and training newbies...spending time with him is hard.”

“You obviously don't know how to handle all this yet.” Adam said as he pushed his glasses back with a gleam. “But I have a plan to make Lancito happy and to get everyone to understand each other more.”

“How?” Olia asked twitching her ear. “We only have dinner time together, other than Lance's escapades, there's no other way.”

Adam smirked. “Leave that to me.”

Keith POV

I was walking towards the cafeteria with Marco about an hour after Lance was taken from us, when we received a mass comm call. Adam's face popped, “Everyone. Go straight outside to the open area instead of the cafeteria.” He then clicked off before anyone could speak.

“What was that about?” I asked Marco.

He gave a smile before turning around. “You'll see.” I rose an eyebrow before following him. On our way there he was talking about the time Veronica, Luis and himself teamed up on Rachel, Adam and Lance during a prank war. I laughed harder when he said Veronica had green hair for a week and Adam's face was covered in permanent sharpie drawings. I always saw them as these high officers, but with the way Marco mentions them makes me realize that they weren’t always high ranking officers.

As we arrived I gasped at the sight. The area was surrounded by 7 large tables forming a circle with food that I never seen before. The area was covered with these gorgeous lanterns that lit up the small area. Music was softly playing in the background, Selena Quintanilla I think? Lance sang her music often during our missions together. “You outdid yourself Adam.” I turned to see Luis walking behind me with the kids running forward. 

Adam popped up from the middle of the tables setting up the cups. “Hey, I finally get back to see my family, and Lance needs to know no one is ignoring him. I have every right to do this.”

We all sat down, starting from my right down was Shiro, Adam, Lance's mom, an extra seat for Red, Lance’s dad, Veronica, Rachel, Marco, Luis, Lisa, Sylvio, Nadia, Orion, Deon, Olia, Matt’s girlfriend, Matt, Pidge, Colleen, Sam, Iverson, Rax, Shay, Hunk, his mom then dad, Allura, Romelle, Coran, Kolivan, Axca, Ina, Razavi, James, Kinkade, last which is next to me was my mom along with Kosmo between us trying to sneak some food from the table. Our group expanded big time.

Adam turned on his comm. “Hey Lance.” We received a small mumble. “Red needs to come back so he can eat.”

“Fine.” He sounded tired which worried us. “His stomach has been growling for an hour and it's driving me insane.” We heard his thrusters start. “Red come on….yes you need to eat….Well i’m sorry us humans need to eat…Look you might have different tastes okay? Just keep trying new things and you will find something please?” We heard a small growl followed by a purr. “Thank you.” We could hear him fly over before. “Oh?” He landed allowing Red to slid off his nose. “What's all this?”

“Basically...the equivalent to a family meal, just with more people and a lion.” Adam said with a smile.

Lance whined. “You shouldn't be out here late at night. The desert gets really cold and I don't want none of you to get sick.”

“Well too late.” Veronica said lifting her hand to silence Lance's protests. “We knew, and we still wanted to do this.” 

He sighed before purring. “This is nice.” He curled his body around us, pecked my head which I became accustomed to and started talking about random topics. Kinkade mentioned something about being a film geek which grabbed Lances attention, he asked if Kinkade could record him in this form for the future. Kinkade agreed but said his camera wasn't working much gaining a thoughtful hum from Adam. Coran decided to take the chance and asked Lance's parents about Lance which happily his mom mention things like how Lance saved a baby dolphin, and was about to mention the llama only to receive a high pitch whirl from Lance. 

“Seriously. What happened with the llama???” Rizavi asked. “Come on. We're all buddies here.”

“Ah Lance…” Lance growled at Luis before tapping him with his claw. “Ow.”

“Is afraid of llamas!” Rachel said before diving under the table when Lance faced her.

I snorted before busting out laughing. “Hold on? Lance. Our Lance is afraid of llamas?”

“They are spawns of Satan himself.” He growled. “They are awful creatures that shouldn’t exist.”

Lance’s mother laughed. “Mijo I think you’re being dramatic.” She waved him off as she slowly stopped laughing. “Mijo just has bad luck with them.” I was leaning forward as did many others ready to hear this story. “You see when Lance was 10–”

“9!” Lance yelled as he covered his face with a paw. “I was 9!”

“When he was 9, we were visiting a farm that was my friends back in the day. He saw this baby llama and thought it looked like a big stuffie.”

“Excuse me Madam.” Coran interrupted. “What exactly is a stuffie?”

“Stuffed plush doll.” Luis answered. “We call them stuffies though.” 

Coran nodded before, “Hang on for a moment.” Acxa said a wave of her hand. “Mind telling us what a llama is exactly? Should we be afraid of them? Cautious?”

Pidge pulled up a hologram. “Not really. Those things are pretty cute.” She pulled up a video of a baby llama running around bleeping for its mother. The others who never seen a llama cooed at this, but I laughed when I heard a small growl from Lance.

Lance’s mother continued. “Anyways, back to the story, Lance thought it was a large stuffie and went into the pen. Well he got to the baby Llama before my friend yelled at him that it wasn’t safe in there. The baby yelled and kicked him in the stomach making Lance fall into this mud pile, well as he got up, Lance turned around and saw about 10 adult llamas, one which was the alpha male llama. Lance screamed and ran from them ended up being chased about 2 miles away from us which made Lance’s father and my friend’s husband go in with the cattle dogs to round them up.”

I heard a low laugh and noticed Lance’s father laughing. “I’ll take it from here Maria.” Oh so that’s her name. “When the dogs found the llamas, Lance was up a tree screaming cause the alpha llama was still trying to bite him.”

“In my defense, I was tiny and those monsters were huge.” Lance said peeking from his paw.

“Mijo. Every time one spits near you, you scream and run.”

Lance gave a low whine. “That’s traumatizing for a 9 year old!” The entire table busted out laughing as he said this. “It’s not funny! Those are monsters!”

“Not only that time, Another time was when one grabbed Lance’s hoodie and he tried getting it back only for it to be torn in half and the llama chewed on his half while staring him down!” Rachel said in between laughs.

“Or that one time, a baby llama came up to him and kicked him in the groin.” Luis said wiping a tear from his eye. 

“Or or...When Lance was sitting down and he turned around to see a llama staring at him and he screamed before trying to run off only to trip over a rock and fall into the pond.” Veronica said holding onto her sides. 

Lance looked at us with a small growl. “Okay that’s enough.” 

“Aw come on babe.” I said it in a honey sweet voice. “This is funny.”

“For you maybe Mr. fights an Arusian even though he’s toddler size.” He shot back.

“At least I didn’t get handcuffed to a tree.”

“Hold on!” James said as he tried to hold back a laugh. “I need to hear these!”

The rest of dinner was just basically everyone saying something embarrassing about the other, which was nice to listen to. I never really had a family and having this large makeshift one kinda equals out the pain of not having one. I have my boyfriend, my mom, my brother, the ones I call family, Lance's family who already claimed me and Shiro as theirs, and the new ones who seem to enjoy being together with us since Lance’s operation. Lance kept us together in space, I can see where he gets it. His biological family has a thing for keeping us together even through tough times like these.

I smiled but not before I had a small chill. “Are you cold?” I looked up to see Lance's head raised.

I was going to argue but I decided against it. “Yeah sorta.” He was quiet before he dimmed his eyes and soon a sudden warmth radiated across the area. “What did-”

“You were cold, I'm the lion of fire, i just let out a bit of heat to keep you warm.” He said as he lowered his head and nudged the back on my seat before laying it down. “Is it good enough?”

I smiled before leaning back on his nose. “Thank you Lance.” 

He purred as we continue on the conversation. Soon the kids started yawning, “I think it's time we go inside for sleep.” Shiro said as many begun cleaning up. “There's much to do tomorrow and everyone should be prepared at any given moment.” The clean up wasn’t that long with so many people, took about 5 minutes before James and Kinkade took the tables to a nearby empty storage room while Hunk, his mom and Shay took the dishes and trash.

As we made our way inside I looked to see one of the kids running towards Lance. “Nooo! I wanna be with Lancey Lance!” Nadia said as she hugged his lowered muzzle. “I wanna be with Uncle Lancey!” She stifled a yawn.

I don't know what came over me, but I walked forward and gently picked her up. “Hey. Come on.” I said softly as she turned to me with eyes similar to Lance. “It's time for you to go to sleep.”

“But Lancey…” She reached towards him. “He's all alone.” 

I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “He's not alone. He's got the other lions by his side.” I hear a purr erupt from Lance which made me look up at him with a small smile. “Besides...He's keeping us safe while we're sleeping.”

She looked conflicted before she turned and place a hand on his muzzle. “Okay. Goodnight Lancey.”

“Goodnight mi amorcito.” Lance said softly before moving his muzzle and nudging me. “And goodnight to you, amor.”

I leaned my forehead on his nose and whispered. “Goodnight…..love.”

I pulled away and walked away as Nadia waved to Lance. She yawned once we made our way into to building and laid her head on my shoulder. We made it to the large room, it had bunk beds built into the wall that can be pushed back in to create more space as well as about four air mattresses in the bottom. I was going to place Nadia next to an already sleeping Sylvio when she shook her head no. “Can I sleep with you please Mister Keith?”

I paused before turning to her mother who gave me a warm smile and a nod. “Sure.” I laid her on my bunk and quickly got ready before climbing into bed. She curled into my side and I softened. I always thought this wasn't meant for me, but the more time I spend with Lance's family, I want to create our own little family. Having Nadia sleeping softly pushes this feeling more, maybe I'll speak about it with Lance one day. 

Before I slept, I felt another nudge and looked to see Sylvio standing with a small blanket in his arm. “Can I sleep with you too. Uncle Lancey used to let us both.” I smiled before lifting him onto the bunk and he laid his head on my stretched arm and slowly drifted off but not before, “Goodnight Uncle Keithy.”

I felt tears prickle before softly returning, “Goodnight Sil.” And slowly drifted off with the sounds off snores from those in the room and the soft sleeping whines of Kosmo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I head cannon that Adam was Lance's cousin right? See Keith didn't have a family or no one to back him up right? Well Adam lost his family and his relatives did everything they could to make him know he's still loved. I'm hispanic and I know that in our family when one of us had something bad happening, we made sure to be there no matter who it was. That's just how my large family worked you know? Kinda wanted to show that in this. Lance's family bring people together, sorta like mine, we don't trust easily, but we always bring those close and make them part of our family like Lance's does in this. 
> 
> Okay to that Llama story? Was kinda based off mine, but I had issues with cows, I hate those things cause they traumatized me as a child. Can't get me near those things and people think it's funny like with Lance. 
> 
> I never thought Adam was strict like other portrayed him, I always thought he has the similar attitude as Lance. 
> 
> Keith is starting to want a family of his own, you know who caught on? Well you'll see soon...
> 
> Oh yeah and Lance is starting to understand his new form more, he's unconsciously learning how to control his form quicker than Pidge thought. 
> 
> Yes, the Lions are strict with Lance, but it's cause they care and want him to be safe.
> 
> What's going to happen next? Is it all safe right now as we all assume? Find out soon!
> 
>  
> 
> If it's not posted soon, it's cause i'm under some pressure and I write bit by bit as a stress relief. Tell me what you think of the story! Comment and share your thoughts! 
> 
> Stay safe, smile and always be yourself!  
> ~Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Lance is pretty self sacrificial and willing to go far right? Tell me what you think? I'll see you all soon!
> 
> Smile and always be yourself!  
> ~Shadows


End file.
